Poets of World War I - Softcover

Smith, Rupert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1432996460 ISBN 13: 9781432996468

Publisher: Heinemann/Raintree, 2014

Synopsis

World War I was one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history – and yet it produced some of the best poetry of the 20th century. Many people’s first encounter with poetry is through writers like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, and the passion and power they find in it makes a very deep impact. This collective biography of poets like Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Graves, Rosenberg, Brittain, Sorley, and Seeger, along with potted biographies of many other war poets, gives the background of the poets' experiences to explain how the war created so much important poetry – and why we keep coming back to this work a hundred years later.

About this title

From Booklist:

This informative collective biography discusses 8 notable poets of WWI and introduces 13 more in an appended section of paragraph-long summaries. The featured writers are British soldiers Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves, and Charles Sorley, along with English nurse Vera Brittain and American soldier Alan Seeger. Only 3 survived the war. Smith introduces each writer in a concise chapter that brings out the individual character of the person and his or her poetry. The book’s missteps are minior: for example, saying that Brooke attended “the University of Cambridge” rather than “King’s College, Cambridge,” sounds needlessly vague and possibly Americanized. On the other hand, the links to online sources featured throughout the book lead to a gold mine of useful information. Illustrated with color reproductions of photos and paintings, this is a short, solid introduction to a perennially interesting topic. A good book to have on hand as we enter the centenary period of WWI. Grades 7-10. --Carolyn Phelan

About this edition

• Publisher: Heinemann/Raintree
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1432996460
• ISBN 13: 9781432996468
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64