Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology (Oxford World's Classics)

The 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War 1 is officially July 28, the day Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and attacked, in retribution for the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and Archduchess Sophie in Sarajevo by a Serbian teenager. By the time the war ended, more than 70 million military personnel had been involved; more than nine million combatants were dead; and the German, Austrian, Ottoman, and Russian ruling families were swept from power.It seems odd to associate poetry with war, but it is a fact that no war is more connected to poetry that World War I. And for that we mostly have the English to thank.From 1914 to 1918, poetry went to war. But it went to war in all its possible permutations – jingoistic nationalism; nostalgia for a world being fought for even as it passed away; the cynical response of the men in the trenches to their incompetent generals; the mourning of civilians; pacifism and opposition to the war; and the reflection of what it all meant, or didn’t mean, years after the war was over.The poets we usually associate with World War I are those who died in the conflict – Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), and possibly Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918). These are the ones who usually show up in the high school and college English textbooks. But as Tim Kendall points out in “The Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology,” the number of poets involved was far greater than the handful represented in the texts. They came from the upper classes, middle class and working class.Novelist Thomas Hardy, for example, wrote poems about the war from the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 to the armistice in November 1918. So did Rudyard Kipling, who lost his son John at age 18 in the Battle of Loos.And it wasn’t only poets who went to war; men in the trenches read poetry. In fact, Kendall says, the most commonly read book by soldiers in the trenches was A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, possibly because of the feelings the long poem evoked about the England being fought for.And after the war, it was largely the poets who framed Britain’s understanding of what had happened and why.The anthology includes some wonderful poetry, and it’s difficult to limit a choice of favorites to one or two or a handful. Here is one by Rosenberg, who grew up in Whitechapel in London’s East End and was torn between being a painter or a poet until the war arrived:Break of Day in the TrenchesThe darkness crumbles away.It is the same old druid Time as ever,Only a live thing leaps my hand,A queer sardonic rat,As I pull the parapet’s poppyTo stick behind my ear.Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knewYour cosmopolitan sympathies.Now you have touched this English handYou will do the same to a GermanSoon, no doubt, if it be your pleasureTo cross the sleeping green between.It seems you inwardly grin as you passStrong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,Less chanced than you for life,Bonds to the whims of murder,Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,The torn fields of France.What do you see in our eyesAt the shrieking iron and flameHurled through still heavens?What quaver—what heart aghast?Poppies whose roots are in man’s veinsDrop, and are ever dropping;But mine in my ear is safe—Just a little white with the dust.And there’s Edward Thomas (1878-1917), considered something of a hack writer, Kendall says, until he developed a friendship with and received encouragement from Robert Frost. His first book of poetry was being prepared for publication when Thomas was killed at the Battle of Arras. This is his poem “The Private:”This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doorsMany a frozen night, and merrilyAnswered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:"At Mrs Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," said he,"I slept." None knew which bush. Above the town,Beyond `The Drover', a hundred spot the downIn Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleepsMore sound in France -that, too, he secret keeps.Two other favorites are Robert Service’s “Only a Boche” and Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth.”Kendall, professor of English at Exeter University, is a poet, biographer and literary critic, having publishing works on Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath, Paul Muldoon, war poetry, and 20th century British and Irish poetry. He also has a blog entitled War Poetry. In “The Poetry of World War I,” Kendall has created a remarkable anthology. The introductory essay alone is worth the price of the book. The poems included have been selected with care and insight (and are annotated), and each poet receives a succinct introduction. He also includes music-hall and trench songs such as “Mademoiselle from Armentieres,” because even the songs sung by soldiers had poetic influence.When I finished this deeply satisfying anthology, having read and reread many of the poems, I better understood why this war was so infused with poetry. These are poems that came from the mud, the blood, the lice, and the tedium of war in the trenches, a tedium interrupted by occasional shellings and horrific battles. And these poems came from the witnessing of friends and comrades dying, often painfully so, and even understanding that the deaths of enemy soldiers was in a way the death of themselves.This war changed everything, sweeping away what once was and what never could be restored. And poetry was there to express it and record it.

I just received this, and I know I will read it cover to cover. I am dismayed, however, that the Amazon entry mentioned only in passing (and I missed) that it is the works of British and Irish poets only. This is not specified on the front or back cover, either. I will have to buy another book for the Canadian writer's poem "In Flanders Fields" and any American writings.

Excellent, comprehensive and well-annotated collection. There's enough here to guide the reader into delving further into the poetry and/or biography of any of the included poets. I wanted to reread some of the more familiar poems, such as "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," as well as others new to me, in this hundredth year since the beginning of the Great War. While acknowledging that nothing can fully convey the experience of war to anyone who wasn't there, I feel that these poets do so as near-completely as can done with words. This for me is a satisfying anthology.

I've read a good deal of the poets from The Great War. This volume includes the familiar but also some lesser known poets, including women.

Part of a "we will be better for having read this" choice by a small reading group. And we were. Vivid and moving descriptions, but little true poetry in the sense of the form of the language interacting with the thoughts conveyed.

This is the best of its kind I have read. That includes the Fussel book. I had seen some of the WWI songs, but not a whole collection. I'd rate this book the best of it's kind.

The "War poets" from the time of the Great War are still without peer.

Another Christmas gift, My grandson loved it

There are so many anthologies of First World War poetry to choose from. Why go for this one?There are a number of reasons:1. Tim Kendall provides an illuminating introduction, biographical information on each poet and excellent notes on the poems themselves, which are presented in authoritative versions. Without being overwhelming and academic the notes really help explain some of the references that might be lost on today's reader.2. All the major poets are well represented but there are less known women and civilian poets included as well.3. Some other anthologies only include poems written during the war. This one goes further , finding space for some moving post-war reflections by Edmund Blunden and others.4. There are some wonderfully poignant music hall song lyrics as well.Highly recommended.

I found tjhis to contain a very good selection of poets and poetry with useful summaries of the poets. As with every anthology the selection is Tim Kendall's and I miss one or two particular poems but I have other books to supplement this but it is well worth the price. For a paperback it is well bound and will I think take a fakr amount of use so would be very useful to a student. I recommend. It has a good set of references and is well indexxed. Deserves being widely read.

That so much sadness, melancholia, hope for better times, despair, humour, regret - can come out of the horror of war drives home what a terrible mistake it is to think that the problems of mankind can ever be solved by armed conflict. Every politician, ruler, religious leader, war profiteer should be made to read these works, many by those directly involved, then perhaps, they may learn something.

I used this book as research for an historical interpretation event - I was looking for a mixture of poetry from the men at the front as well as the women who served or waited at home. It also has WW1 songs as well which was really helpful. A lovely mix of poems that many will be familiar with as well as those that won't.

This anthology contained a superb amount of poets which was great to help with my dissertation as well as the introduction which was very well written with some great insight into certain poets during the First World War