We at Write Out Loud would like to mark Ukraine Independence Day by paying tribute to our own regular contributor Stephen Gospage, who has been untiring in posting poems about the terrible situation in Ukraine on this site. While the media has grown weary of reporting the atrocities perpetrated almost daily by Russia, Stephen has continued to post poems of remarkable quality, sympathy, and empathy – and, to employ Wilfred Owen’s famous word, pity – about the terrible war wreaked by Russia on its neighbouring country.

You can read Stephen's most recent poem about Ukraine - 'Afternoon Stroll', posted on Monday - here.

Stephen has spent most of his working life in Brussels. Now retired, he lives in Belgium, close to Waterloo, and has dual British and Belgian nationality. 

Three of Stephen’s poems – ‘Staged Event’, ‘Missile’, and ‘Carnival’ – have appeared in the Poetry Performance anthology Poems for Ukraine, to be officially launched at The Willoughby Arms pub in Kingston-upon-Thames, on Friday 16 September. You can find Stephen’s poems about Ukraine on his Write Out Loud Profile page