The Penguin Book Of First World War Poetry

This volume aims at being comprehensive within the confines of excellence. it does not attempt a picture, in verse, of the War; nor does it aim at representing all those who wrote verse. It offers the best work by the best poets. It therefore includes a few poets such as Hardy, Kipling and Flint who were not combatants, but who yet wrote good poetry concerned, in the main, directly with the War. Most of the poets however were combatants and some, like Sorley, did not survive long enough to do more than hint at their potential. Others, like Edward Thomas, did not survive long enough for the experience of combat to enter into their work, although the War is certainly present.

The principal poets, such as Rosenberg and Owen, are of course well represented. But there is also Herbert Read, Sassoon, Blunden and, difficult though he is to represent, David Jones (In Parenthesis). The analogy also contains a sample from the work (in translation) of German, French, and Italian 'War' poetry. As far as English poetry is concerned the period is still, and will remain, crucial to the development of modern poetry, besides providing some of the finest poetry of the twentieth century. The period also offers an alternate route to that provided by Eliot and Pound, and one in which experience and value come painfully together.