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Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen (New Directions Books) by Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen participó en la Gran Guerra y murió en ella pocos días antes del armisticio. Este volumen que hoy presentamos recoge sus poemas más conocidos y que probablemente sean su contribución más importante a la poesía del siglo XX: sus poemas de la guerra. Escritos en un breve lapso de tiempo, entre el verano de 1917 y el otoño de 1918, los versos reflejan el impacto extraordinario de la guerra y el consecuente cambio que ésta ocasionó en la visión del mundo. La intensidad de las descripciones de Owen, no sólo de las heridas del cuerpo, sino fundamentalmente de las del alma, es realmente conmovedora, y transforma los poemas escritos en el campo de batalla en un bello alegato pacifista. Benjamin Britten insertó varios de estos poemas entre los textos litúrgicos que conforman una de sus mayores obras: el War Requiem. Una Misa de Difuntos que reconsagró en 1962 la derruida catedral de Coventry.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1918
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About the author
Wilfred Owen
170 books233 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the goodreads data base.
Wilfred Owen was a defining voice of British poetry during the First World War, renowned for his stark portrayals of trench warfare and gas attacks. Deeply influenced by Siegfried Sassoon, whom he met while recovering from shell shock, Owen’s work departed from the patriotic war verse of the time, instead conveying the brutal reality of combat and the suffering of soldiers. Among his best-known poems are Dulce et Decorum est, Anthem for Doomed Youth, and Strange Meeting—many of which were published only after his death.
Born in 1893 in Shropshire, Owen developed an early passion for poetry and religion, both of which would shape his artistic and moral worldview. He worked as a teacher and spent time in France before enlisting in the British Army in 1915. After a traumatic experience at the front, he was treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon’s mentorship helped refine his poetic voice.
Owen returned to active service in 1918, determined to bear witness to the horrors of war. He was killed in action just one week before the Armistice. Though only a few of his poems were published during his lifetime, his posthumous collections cemented his legacy as one of the greatest war poets in English literature. His work continues to be studied for its powerful combination of romantic lyricism and brutal realism, as well as its complex engagement with themes of faith, duty, and identity.
Wilfred Owen was a defining voice of British poetry during the First World War, renowned for his stark portrayals of trench warfare and gas attacks. Deeply influenced by Siegfried Sassoon, whom he met while recovering from shell shock, Owen’s work departed from the patriotic war verse of the time, instead conveying the brutal reality of combat and the suffering of soldiers. Among his best-known poems are Dulce et Decorum est, Anthem for Doomed Youth, and Strange Meeting—many of which were published only after his death.
Born in 1893 in Shropshire, Owen developed an early passion for poetry and religion, both of which would shape his artistic and moral worldview. He worked as a teacher and spent time in France before enlisting in the British Army in 1915. After a traumatic experience at the front, he was treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon’s mentorship helped refine his poetic voice.
Owen returned to active service in 1918, determined to bear witness to the horrors of war. He was killed in action just one week before the Armistice. Though only a few of his poems were published during his lifetime, his posthumous collections cemented his legacy as one of the greatest war poets in English literature. His work continues to be studied for its powerful combination of romantic lyricism and brutal realism, as well as its complex engagement with themes of faith, duty, and identity.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 196 reviews
January 16, 2018
I make no apology for starting with one of Owen’s more well-known poems Dulce Et Decorum Est:
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The title is from Horace: It is sweet and right to die for your country.
This collection includes Owen’s pre-war poems and lots of fragments of poems. It is easy to see that the really powerful standout poems are all war poems; there is a vast difference between these poems and his early work, hardly surprising. Most of Owen’s poems were published posthumously and those that were published were in an In-house magazine at Craiglockhart hospital. There is a memorial piece at the end by Edmund Blunden written in 1931 which contains extracts from his letters and is fascinating as it shows some of the ways his thought was developing. The passion and compassion of Owen towards the suffering and disenchanted stands out. Owen understands the men he is with; he understands soldiers and their role and he is angry on their behalf with those in power and those who criticise from the side-lines:
except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful
dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling
of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell.
You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mind. These men are worth
Your tears: you are not worth their merriment.
Owen’s letters show how his political thought was developing in a pacifist direction and he says that his conception of Christianity was incompatible with pure patriotism. He does not shirk addressing difficult issues including the effect of war on mental health in the poem “Mental Cases” and placing blame where he thinks it lies:
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
— These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh
— Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
— Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness
This could easily become a run through of the poems; they are now well known and much studied and still retain their power. If you haven’t read them, do have a look, but I’ll sign off this review with Anthem for Doomed Youth:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The title is from Horace: It is sweet and right to die for your country.
This collection includes Owen’s pre-war poems and lots of fragments of poems. It is easy to see that the really powerful standout poems are all war poems; there is a vast difference between these poems and his early work, hardly surprising. Most of Owen’s poems were published posthumously and those that were published were in an In-house magazine at Craiglockhart hospital. There is a memorial piece at the end by Edmund Blunden written in 1931 which contains extracts from his letters and is fascinating as it shows some of the ways his thought was developing. The passion and compassion of Owen towards the suffering and disenchanted stands out. Owen understands the men he is with; he understands soldiers and their role and he is angry on their behalf with those in power and those who criticise from the side-lines:
except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful
dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling
of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell.
You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mind. These men are worth
Your tears: you are not worth their merriment.
Owen’s letters show how his political thought was developing in a pacifist direction and he says that his conception of Christianity was incompatible with pure patriotism. He does not shirk addressing difficult issues including the effect of war on mental health in the poem “Mental Cases” and placing blame where he thinks it lies:
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
— These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh
— Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
— Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness
This could easily become a run through of the poems; they are now well known and much studied and still retain their power. If you haven’t read them, do have a look, but I’ll sign off this review with Anthem for Doomed Youth:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Read
May 10, 2018I have a love-hate for war poetry.
It is the only art form that exists wherein people have to die, in droves; where death is legion. The greater the number of people that die, the better the poetry. The more that it is a cruel and senseless death, the better the poetry. The more pointless it is, the better the poetry. For every such point, a cruel counterpoint, so that the impact is felt in the heart. And in the solar plexus.
If you don't feel it in the solar plexus, if it doesn't make you short of breath, if it doesn't take your breath away, then it's not good war poetry. And so, does that mean, it wasn't a good war; that is, the war wasn't cruel, pointless, bloody enough to rate on the scale of the world's atrocities to make it worthy for the poet's pen?
For what it's worth, Wilfred Owen's poetry hits me in the solar plexus. It makes me wish he had never written these poems.
What I mean is, it makes me wish he had never had the need to write these poems.
Would we have known Wilfred Owen otherwise? Might he have been a mild-mannered school teacher, living his days out in boredom and peace in some sunny little corner of England? Might he have been the one who used the atom bomb on Nagasaki? Might he have been the one who found the cure for cancer?
Might he have been the best poet that ever lived?
Instead, he was the best poet that ever lived who hardly lived.
Now perhaps you can better understand my predicament when I read war poetry and hesitate to give my rating. Can I really give this 10 stars, because he died so young, so pointlessly, so bravely? And all for naught?
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(from Dulce et decorum est)
It is the only art form that exists wherein people have to die, in droves; where death is legion. The greater the number of people that die, the better the poetry. The more that it is a cruel and senseless death, the better the poetry. The more pointless it is, the better the poetry. For every such point, a cruel counterpoint, so that the impact is felt in the heart. And in the solar plexus.
If you don't feel it in the solar plexus, if it doesn't make you short of breath, if it doesn't take your breath away, then it's not good war poetry. And so, does that mean, it wasn't a good war; that is, the war wasn't cruel, pointless, bloody enough to rate on the scale of the world's atrocities to make it worthy for the poet's pen?
For what it's worth, Wilfred Owen's poetry hits me in the solar plexus. It makes me wish he had never written these poems.
What I mean is, it makes me wish he had never had the need to write these poems.
Would we have known Wilfred Owen otherwise? Might he have been a mild-mannered school teacher, living his days out in boredom and peace in some sunny little corner of England? Might he have been the one who used the atom bomb on Nagasaki? Might he have been the one who found the cure for cancer?
Might he have been the best poet that ever lived?
Instead, he was the best poet that ever lived who hardly lived.
Now perhaps you can better understand my predicament when I read war poetry and hesitate to give my rating. Can I really give this 10 stars, because he died so young, so pointlessly, so bravely? And all for naught?
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(from Dulce et decorum est)
January 2, 2025
Picture this: you are a sensitive young Englishman who writes rather flowery, romantic poetry. You lead a comfortable lower-middle-class life in towns like Berkinhead and Shrewsbury. Then one day England is thrown into war. Not just any war—World War I. You become a young officer and are tossed into the horrendous killing fields of France and Belgium. Nothing could prepare you, or anyone, for the hellish nightmare of trench warfare. All your previous assumptions about life and art are jettisoned in the face of such horror. The young man is, of course, Wilfred Owen.
If his poems could take human physical form, the pre-war verses would appear in the form of a charming and gentle soul, good looking, with a rakish sense of humor and an eye for the romantic. The war poems on the other hand would appear in the form of a broken wreck, disfigured and mutilated in body and soul, with a keen eye for the utter degradation imposed on soldiers by the slaughterhouse of war. Not just war, but futile war. Wasteful war. Obscene war.
Read his war poems at your peril. A shallow glance will make you cringe. Close reading will make you ill.
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori.
Owen was killed at the front on November 4, 1918, a week before the end of the war. He was twenty-five.
The poems, harsh and uncompromising as they are, cry out to be read.
If his poems could take human physical form, the pre-war verses would appear in the form of a charming and gentle soul, good looking, with a rakish sense of humor and an eye for the romantic. The war poems on the other hand would appear in the form of a broken wreck, disfigured and mutilated in body and soul, with a keen eye for the utter degradation imposed on soldiers by the slaughterhouse of war. Not just war, but futile war. Wasteful war. Obscene war.
Read his war poems at your peril. A shallow glance will make you cringe. Close reading will make you ill.
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori.
Owen was killed at the front on November 4, 1918, a week before the end of the war. He was twenty-five.
The poems, harsh and uncompromising as they are, cry out to be read.
June 10, 2023
I just read the poems, not the introduction or the long appendix. They are some of the most moving poems in the English language.
May 4, 2016
For anyone out there that wishes to understand the effects of war in the minds of a young man, read his poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" as it is one of the greatest I have read, written in such a descriptive manner you feel as if you were the one dying in the trenches. Truly beautiful in the traumatic of it all.
Dulce Et Decorum Est read by Christopher Eccleston
Dulce Et Decorum Est read by Christopher Eccleston
May 30, 2024
Another year, another return to these extraordinary poems. Always essential, every time I come back to them I am freshly reminded of the incredible visceral power of which words are capable, even in isolation, alone, away from the augmentation of music, film, or art.
On this reading, it was the old classic, Dulce et Decorum est, that really set my spine atingle (even if I still think Strange Meeting is the special one).
——Previous Review:——
Poetry is hard to slap a meaningful star rating on, but the collected works of Wilfred Owen must surely add up to one of the Great Books of the 20th century. I come back to them every once in a while, and they never fail to put my hair on end. Owen's poems are some of the most moving artworks to come out of the World Wars, so this little book easily earns its 5 stars. It’s as prescient as 1984. There’s not much else to say about Owen's work — he says it all himself — so here are some of my favourite extracts:
And, for my money, the masterpiece:
There’s something so helpless and sad about the line: “I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.” It reminds me of Prince Andrei, in War & Peace, losing the strength of will to fight the terrible dark force pushing its way in from behind the door in his dream: “He seized the door, making a final effort to hold it back — to lock it was no longer possible — but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from behind by that terror, opened and closed again.”
Sometimes the tides of fate are too strong and no one can be blamed for not being able to fight them any longer and allowing themself to be swept away. Tolstoy saw what war really was, and so did Owen.
-----
I listen to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem quite a lot, which sets some of these poems to music and keeps them alive in my mind. I can therefore recite quite a lot of Owen from memory... kind of like my version of knowing the lyrics to a Beyonce song, I suppose (I'm all about my easy-going, chill-out choons, after all).
On this reading, it was the old classic, Dulce et Decorum est, that really set my spine atingle (even if I still think Strange Meeting is the special one).
——Previous Review:——
Poetry is hard to slap a meaningful star rating on, but the collected works of Wilfred Owen must surely add up to one of the Great Books of the 20th century. I come back to them every once in a while, and they never fail to put my hair on end. Owen's poems are some of the most moving artworks to come out of the World Wars, so this little book easily earns its 5 stars. It’s as prescient as 1984. There’s not much else to say about Owen's work — he says it all himself — so here are some of my favourite extracts:
‘Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?’
— Disabled, 1917 (extract)
And, for my money, the masterpiece:
‘It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .” ’
— Strange Meeting, 1918
There’s something so helpless and sad about the line: “I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.” It reminds me of Prince Andrei, in War & Peace, losing the strength of will to fight the terrible dark force pushing its way in from behind the door in his dream: “He seized the door, making a final effort to hold it back — to lock it was no longer possible — but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from behind by that terror, opened and closed again.”
Sometimes the tides of fate are too strong and no one can be blamed for not being able to fight them any longer and allowing themself to be swept away. Tolstoy saw what war really was, and so did Owen.
-----
I listen to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem quite a lot, which sets some of these poems to music and keeps them alive in my mind. I can therefore recite quite a lot of Owen from memory... kind of like my version of knowing the lyrics to a Beyonce song, I suppose (I'm all about my easy-going, chill-out choons, after all).
July 20, 2025
The poems I found most haunting among the non-martial ones included "Maundy Thursday," "The Rime of the Youthful Mariner," and "Who Is the God of Canongate?" It was also interesting to see, after my dip into Hans Christian Andersen's tales last year, that Owen saw Andersen as a kind of forefather, honing his craft by writing English verse renderings of both "The Little Mermaid" and "Little Claus and Big Claus."
I love Owen's use of pararhyme and feel inspired to try my own hand at it sometime. I wonder what other poets have been notable for using it?
Another thing that's been on my mind is Owen's sparing and meaningful use of the word "friend." I'm thinking, for example, of how much work the phrase "my friend" does in the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est," where it is bitingly satirical but maybe also a little desperate in its effort to win over, to convince. Or how spine-tingling the word "friend" is when it is used by the two dialogists, each once, in "Strange Meeting": there, the early spoken words "Strange, friend" could just as well be read as "Strange friend," foreshadowing the poem's final revelation of ghostliness; later, in the oxymoronic sentence "I am the enemy you killed, my friend," the use of the word drives home the paradox of death and its transcendence of national boundaries. In "Spring Offensive," there is the rather intriguingly vague line "The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done" -- what sort of "love" is being spoken of in this metaphor, and how comes it to be "done," one wonders? And then there is the poem "Wild With All Regrets," dedicated to Siegfried Sassoon, wherein the speaker, on his deathbed (prefiguring Owen's own premature death less than a year later), toys with the vampiric idea of transforming into a flea so that he can "find another body" to prolong his waning life, ending with these startlingly direct and eroticism-mingled lines:
"A flea would do. If one chap wasn't bloody,
Or went stone-cold, I'd find another body.
Which I shan't manage now. Unless it's yours.
I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours.
You'll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest,
And climb your throat on sobs, until it's chased
On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
I think on your rich breathing, brother, I'll be weaned
To do without what blood remained me from my wound."
Owen only foresaw his speaker's life being prolonged for "some few hours" by this imaginative method, but today, over a century later, he still "stay[s] in" us, palpable on our lips and in our chests and throats, the lines of his poetry still buoyed "on [our] breathing." Our human species still must grapple with the spiritual ramifications of having killed him, of continuing to kill innocents like him, even today.
I love Owen's use of pararhyme and feel inspired to try my own hand at it sometime. I wonder what other poets have been notable for using it?
Another thing that's been on my mind is Owen's sparing and meaningful use of the word "friend." I'm thinking, for example, of how much work the phrase "my friend" does in the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est," where it is bitingly satirical but maybe also a little desperate in its effort to win over, to convince. Or how spine-tingling the word "friend" is when it is used by the two dialogists, each once, in "Strange Meeting": there, the early spoken words "Strange, friend" could just as well be read as "Strange friend," foreshadowing the poem's final revelation of ghostliness; later, in the oxymoronic sentence "I am the enemy you killed, my friend," the use of the word drives home the paradox of death and its transcendence of national boundaries. In "Spring Offensive," there is the rather intriguingly vague line "The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done" -- what sort of "love" is being spoken of in this metaphor, and how comes it to be "done," one wonders? And then there is the poem "Wild With All Regrets," dedicated to Siegfried Sassoon, wherein the speaker, on his deathbed (prefiguring Owen's own premature death less than a year later), toys with the vampiric idea of transforming into a flea so that he can "find another body" to prolong his waning life, ending with these startlingly direct and eroticism-mingled lines:
"A flea would do. If one chap wasn't bloody,
Or went stone-cold, I'd find another body.
Which I shan't manage now. Unless it's yours.
I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours.
You'll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest,
And climb your throat on sobs, until it's chased
On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
I think on your rich breathing, brother, I'll be weaned
To do without what blood remained me from my wound."
Owen only foresaw his speaker's life being prolonged for "some few hours" by this imaginative method, but today, over a century later, he still "stay[s] in" us, palpable on our lips and in our chests and throats, the lines of his poetry still buoyed "on [our] breathing." Our human species still must grapple with the spiritual ramifications of having killed him, of continuing to kill innocents like him, even today.
August 3, 2016
Umpteenth re-read of some of the most powerful poetry ever written and a big reason I am a committed pacifist since I first read this collection as a child.
November 7, 2021
Such an astonishing collection of Wilfred Owen poems, not only his war poems but also his juvenilia, his attempts in becoming a poet since a younger age.
Owen is regarded as a war poet together with Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, etc. Yet, differently from some other poets, like Sasson, who wrote great poems, yet satirical ones in order to criticize the war, Owen diverges in that his poetry exudes humanism, the experience of the soldier on the battlefield and the horror it caused, far from the patriotic impulses of other poets.
He was his men's man, and died just like that, with the I World War just one week from the signing of the Armistice, intending to give protection to his soldier during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal.
As it is sometimes difficult to express just what we feel about a person, I cite one of his poems, Wild at heart, for anyone to have the exact idea of Owen's greatness. The poem was dedicated to his friend and the one who mentored him, Siegfried Sassoon.
My arms have mutinied against me—brutes!
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats,
My back’s been stiff for hours, damned hours.
Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease.
I can’t read. There: it’s no use. Take you book.
A short life and a merry one, my buck!
We said we’d hate to grow dead old. But now,
Not to live old seems awful: not to renew
My boyhood with my boys, and teach ’em hitting,
Shooting and hunting,—all the arts of hurting!
—Well, that’s what I learnt. That, and making money.
your fifty years in store seem none too many;
But I’ve five minutes. God! For just two years
To help myself to this good air of yours!
One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long?
Spring air would find its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
Yes, there’s the orderly. He’ll change the sheets
When I’m lugged out, oh, couldn’t I do that?
Here in this coffin of a bed, I’ve though
I’d like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever,—
And ask no nights off when the bustle’s over,
For I’d enjoy the dirt; who’s prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his own’s quite dust,—
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn?
Dear dust,—in rooms, on roads, on faces’ tan!
I’d love to be a sweep’s boy, black as Town;
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
A flea would do. If one chap wasn’t bloody,
Or went stone-cold, I’d find another body.
Which I shan’t manage now. Unless it’s yours.
I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours.
You’ll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest,
And climb your throat on sobs, until it’s chased
On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
I think on your rich breathing, brother, I’ll be weaned
To do without what blood remained me from my wound.
Owen is regarded as a war poet together with Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, etc. Yet, differently from some other poets, like Sasson, who wrote great poems, yet satirical ones in order to criticize the war, Owen diverges in that his poetry exudes humanism, the experience of the soldier on the battlefield and the horror it caused, far from the patriotic impulses of other poets.
He was his men's man, and died just like that, with the I World War just one week from the signing of the Armistice, intending to give protection to his soldier during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal.
As it is sometimes difficult to express just what we feel about a person, I cite one of his poems, Wild at heart, for anyone to have the exact idea of Owen's greatness. The poem was dedicated to his friend and the one who mentored him, Siegfried Sassoon.
My arms have mutinied against me—brutes!
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats,
My back’s been stiff for hours, damned hours.
Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease.
I can’t read. There: it’s no use. Take you book.
A short life and a merry one, my buck!
We said we’d hate to grow dead old. But now,
Not to live old seems awful: not to renew
My boyhood with my boys, and teach ’em hitting,
Shooting and hunting,—all the arts of hurting!
—Well, that’s what I learnt. That, and making money.
your fifty years in store seem none too many;
But I’ve five minutes. God! For just two years
To help myself to this good air of yours!
One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long?
Spring air would find its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
Yes, there’s the orderly. He’ll change the sheets
When I’m lugged out, oh, couldn’t I do that?
Here in this coffin of a bed, I’ve though
I’d like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever,—
And ask no nights off when the bustle’s over,
For I’d enjoy the dirt; who’s prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his own’s quite dust,—
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn?
Dear dust,—in rooms, on roads, on faces’ tan!
I’d love to be a sweep’s boy, black as Town;
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
A flea would do. If one chap wasn’t bloody,
Or went stone-cold, I’d find another body.
Which I shan’t manage now. Unless it’s yours.
I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours.
You’ll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest,
And climb your throat on sobs, until it’s chased
On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.
I think on your rich breathing, brother, I’ll be weaned
To do without what blood remained me from my wound.
November 24, 2021
és tan visual i tan dur💔 “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle? only the monstrous anger of the guns. only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle.” eren NENS no puc
December 2, 2014
We covered almost all of Owen's poetry in my English class. However, with Owen, poetry is not a chore, but Owen's cognitive approach to war has really changed the way that I, and millions of others, view any form of belligerence (especially between nations).
As I have no doubt that most of you know, Owen's poetry is against any form of military adventurism, the callousness of society, politics and religion ('What passing bells for those that die as cattle?'), and (most imp. I guess) the plight of the individual soldier against all odds, other human beings who are similar to him as they share the same burden but which he must kill, and nature itself, which 'universalizes' war, pain but also love.
There is no substitute, no defining alternative, to reading the poems themselves. They are short, yet effective to the point of evoking tears in the reader. I'm not exaggerating, I can never forget the first time I read some of them. Although I was in a classroom (with 28 other 'geniuses'), we all were united as one, taking it all while holding back what seemed to be a flood of tears. That is the effect that Owen has, now consider that this is approx. 60 years after the war that inspired it all.
Even Charles, the talkative, 'class clown' at the back would stop talking during the whole course of the lesson. Why? Well, Owen now only has a unique message in all of his poems, but his poetry is so lurid, so engagingly graphic, that one relives the entire experience, and all the angry emotions he must have felt, with him. His poetry is unique in its own respect, and Owen captures the imagination and empathy of his reader in a way that no other academic subject can, which explains why even that infamous Charles would stop talking and listen attentively to Owen's masterpieces which have changed the world...
Even if you do not necessary love poetry, you cannot fail but to admire Owen. He challenged the whole mentality of his times, like a true soldier he stood courageous and bold against the traditions which glorified war yet was hypocritical in many aspects ('the armchair patriots' for example).
As I have no doubt that most of you know, Owen's poetry is against any form of military adventurism, the callousness of society, politics and religion ('What passing bells for those that die as cattle?'), and (most imp. I guess) the plight of the individual soldier against all odds, other human beings who are similar to him as they share the same burden but which he must kill, and nature itself, which 'universalizes' war, pain but also love.
There is no substitute, no defining alternative, to reading the poems themselves. They are short, yet effective to the point of evoking tears in the reader. I'm not exaggerating, I can never forget the first time I read some of them. Although I was in a classroom (with 28 other 'geniuses'), we all were united as one, taking it all while holding back what seemed to be a flood of tears. That is the effect that Owen has, now consider that this is approx. 60 years after the war that inspired it all.
Even Charles, the talkative, 'class clown' at the back would stop talking during the whole course of the lesson. Why? Well, Owen now only has a unique message in all of his poems, but his poetry is so lurid, so engagingly graphic, that one relives the entire experience, and all the angry emotions he must have felt, with him. His poetry is unique in its own respect, and Owen captures the imagination and empathy of his reader in a way that no other academic subject can, which explains why even that infamous Charles would stop talking and listen attentively to Owen's masterpieces which have changed the world...
Even if you do not necessary love poetry, you cannot fail but to admire Owen. He challenged the whole mentality of his times, like a true soldier he stood courageous and bold against the traditions which glorified war yet was hypocritical in many aspects ('the armchair patriots' for example).
October 22, 2009
I named my son Owen. Need I say more.
Ok, well Rupert,Sigfried and Wilfred were just too odd for a little guy to carry through school.
Ok, well Rupert,Sigfried and Wilfred were just too odd for a little guy to carry through school.
March 4, 2017
I never knew I liked poetry. Not until I discovered the poems of Wilfred Owen. So often I’ve read poems and thought that kind of sounds nice, but I forgot the poem soon afterwards and didn’t really think about it. It’s not that I didn’t like the poem. It’s just that the poem wasn’t really striking to me. Not so with Wilfred Owen. The images he conjures are so vivid that it puts you there on the battlefield, experiencing the horrors of war. If I were to use one word to describe it then I would say it is indescribable. His poems ascend the level of poetry, beyond art even into something much grander; something that even the greatest poets can but only aspire to achieve. In addition his poetry, while all about war, is varied. We have the poem Spring Offensive which is about the soldiers and their camaraderie with nature and as the poems go on this camaraderie is increasingly threatened, until the end when the beautiful landscape so described is opened up to the rushing tides of war. The poem Anthem for Doomed Youth is perhaps one of Owen’s most lyrical poems, lamenting those lost in battle and that so many die in war that they are forgotten and he compares the fallen soldiers to slaughtered cattle. Then my favorite poem “The Show,” is a surrealist poem where the narrator is looking out from a vantage point of death at a landscape that seems to take on human features as the poem goes on, eventually culminating in a nightmarish climax. It is first of all Owen’s experiences in war that made it possible for him to write this type of poetry at all. In a hand of an author without those experiences it quite simply wouldn’t be possible. Owen’s ability with literary technique and complex use of syntax combined with his war-time experiences help to create amazingly memorable and vivid poetry.
November 22, 2018
At the end of this series of my readings about World War I, I could not omit some of the well-known anti-war poems written by soldiers at that time. Perhaps the best-known of these poets is Wilfred Owen, who fought until his tragic death just before the end of the war, and his poems are considered to be some of the best of British literature. I certainly am not the most competent to judge their value but I can say that I found many of these war poems really staggering. I was particularly impressed by the poet's ability to convey the feelings of war, the desperation of the trenches, the sense of loss, and even more so by being able to do so using such a beautiful language.
Στο τέλος αυτής της σειράς αναγνωσμάτων μου για τον πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο δεν θα μπορούσα να παραλείψω κάποια από τα πολύ γνωστά αντιπολεμικά ποιήματα που γράφτηκαν από στρατιώτες εκείνη την εποχή. Ίσως ο πιο γνωστός από αυτούς τους ποιητές είναι ο Wilfred Owen, που πολέμησε μέχρι τον τραγικό θάνατό του, λίγο πριν από τη λήξη του πολέμου, και τα ποιήματά του θεωρούνται μερικά από τα καλύτερα της βρετανικής λογοτεχνίας. Εγώ σίγουρα δεν είμαι ο πιο αρμόδιος για να κρίνω την αξία τους αλλά μπορώ να πω ότι βρήκα πολλά από αυτά τα ποιήματα του πολέμου πραγματικά συγκλονιστικά. Εντυπωσιάστηκα ιδιαίτερα από την ικανότητα του ποιητή να μεταφέρει τα συναισθήματα του πολέμου, την απελπισία των χαρακωμάτων, την αίσθηση της απώλειας και ακόμα περισσότερο από το γεγονός οτι μπόρεσε να το κάνει αυτό χρησιμοποιώντας τόσο όμορφη γλώσσα.
Στο τέλος αυτής της σειράς αναγνωσμάτων μου για τον πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο δεν θα μπορούσα να παραλείψω κάποια από τα πολύ γνωστά αντιπολεμικά ποιήματα που γράφτηκαν από στρατιώτες εκείνη την εποχή. Ίσως ο πιο γνωστός από αυτούς τους ποιητές είναι ο Wilfred Owen, που πολέμησε μέχρι τον τραγικό θάνατό του, λίγο πριν από τη λήξη του πολέμου, και τα ποιήματά του θεωρούνται μερικά από τα καλύτερα της βρετανικής λογοτεχνίας. Εγώ σίγουρα δεν είμαι ο πιο αρμόδιος για να κρίνω την αξία τους αλλά μπορώ να πω ότι βρήκα πολλά από αυτά τα ποιήματα του πολέμου πραγματικά συγκλονιστικά. Εντυπωσιάστηκα ιδιαίτερα από την ικανότητα του ποιητή να μεταφέρει τα συναισθήματα του πολέμου, την απελπισία των χαρακωμάτων, την αίσθηση της απώλειας και ακόμα περισσότερο από το γεγονός οτι μπόρεσε να το κάνει αυτό χρησιμοποιώντας τόσο όμορφη γλώσσα.
August 22, 2016
Too real to stand much, the truth of war untold is.
November 19, 2022
The four manuscript scans at the back of the evolution of Anthem for Doomed Youth is very reassuring proof that no one gets poetry right the first time (that first like changed a lot, the last line not at all)
Almost loses half a star for the editor being all "now we don't know WHY Owen never expressed an interest in women and spoke so much about men in non-war poems", but if you ignore the intro the pieces speak for themselves
Almost loses half a star for the editor being all "now we don't know WHY Owen never expressed an interest in women and spoke so much about men in non-war poems", but if you ignore the intro the pieces speak for themselves
September 30, 2018
The first Wilfred Owen poem I ever read was the first one anybody ever reads: “Dulce et Decorum est.” It was in high school, and I was already a history reading nerd by then, so I knew a bit about WWI. But when I read Owen’s poem I felt and understood the war in a way historical accounts and even All Quiet on the Western Front couldn’t convey to me. In just a few brutal lines Owen brings home the ugly brutality of a gas attack, pulling off war’s romantic mask and revealing it for what it really is. I learned about the power of poetry from Owen.
His collected works are uneven, with some poems being much better than others. The ones focusing on the war seem to be the best. They are vivid and cliche-free. They are moving, sad, angry, and eye opening. Like this one that describes what it is like to look up at the sky from the depths of a muddy trench:
Cramped in that funnelled hole, they watched the dawn
Open a jagged rim around; a yawn
Of death’s jaws, which had all but swallowed them
Stuck in the middle of his throat of phlegm.
[And they remembered Hell has many mouths],
They were in one of many mouths of Hell
Not seen of seers in visions; only felt
As teeth of traps; when bones and the dead are smelt
Under the mud where long ago they fell
Mixed with the sour sharp odour of the shell.
Like the work of Alain-Fournier, Owen’s poems are made more powerful by the knowledge that he died in the First World War. You have to wonder what poems he would have written if he’d been given a full life.
His collected works are uneven, with some poems being much better than others. The ones focusing on the war seem to be the best. They are vivid and cliche-free. They are moving, sad, angry, and eye opening. Like this one that describes what it is like to look up at the sky from the depths of a muddy trench:
Cramped in that funnelled hole, they watched the dawn
Open a jagged rim around; a yawn
Of death’s jaws, which had all but swallowed them
Stuck in the middle of his throat of phlegm.
[And they remembered Hell has many mouths],
They were in one of many mouths of Hell
Not seen of seers in visions; only felt
As teeth of traps; when bones and the dead are smelt
Under the mud where long ago they fell
Mixed with the sour sharp odour of the shell.
Like the work of Alain-Fournier, Owen’s poems are made more powerful by the knowledge that he died in the First World War. You have to wonder what poems he would have written if he’d been given a full life.
July 30, 2012
well, this was never quite 'my' sort of poetry. I think owen is much better at writing on war than any other thing -- evenso I worry because his lines are so nice sounding and pathos filled -- I worry about the ethics of having war poetry sound so melodic (though sad).
the introduction by CDL is interesting, as the memoir by blunden. this is also quite comprehensively annotated, so the scholar would find it fairly useful.
the other thing that bugs me is owen's attitude towards women. I mean, maybe I'm being sensitive, but you don't have to be quite so nasty, or assume we're sort of inept, or not worthy of love or whatever.
I feel that CDL and blunden exaggerate owen's talents; certainly he is a fine war poet, but I am not sure he is among the best, but that's just me. he does not have sassoon's talent for irony (I suppose, that's fair though, it's not his thing) but anyway all in all I'm not quite 'inspired' (or more appropriately, distressed)
that said, he is quite enjoyable to read, and I don't regret having this around at all.
the introduction by CDL is interesting, as the memoir by blunden. this is also quite comprehensively annotated, so the scholar would find it fairly useful.
the other thing that bugs me is owen's attitude towards women. I mean, maybe I'm being sensitive, but you don't have to be quite so nasty, or assume we're sort of inept, or not worthy of love or whatever.
I feel that CDL and blunden exaggerate owen's talents; certainly he is a fine war poet, but I am not sure he is among the best, but that's just me. he does not have sassoon's talent for irony (I suppose, that's fair though, it's not his thing) but anyway all in all I'm not quite 'inspired' (or more appropriately, distressed)
that said, he is quite enjoyable to read, and I don't regret having this around at all.
September 22, 2013
"At a Calvary near the Ancre" by Wilfred Owen (late 1917-early 1918).
Here is a rendition of the poem by the tenor Peter Pears from the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flEp_...
Agnus Dei (chorus; Latin) interspersed with Owen's "At a Calvary near the Ancre" (tenor solo)
Tenor:
One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.
Chorus:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.
Tenor:
Near Golgatha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied.
Chorus:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.
Tenor:
The scribes on all the people shove
and bawl allegiance to the state,
Chorus:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi...
Tenor:
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.
Chorus:
...Dona eis requiem.
Tenor:
Dona nobis pacem.
Here is a rendition of the poem by the tenor Peter Pears from the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flEp_...
Agnus Dei (chorus; Latin) interspersed with Owen's "At a Calvary near the Ancre" (tenor solo)
Tenor:
One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.
Chorus:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.
Tenor:
Near Golgatha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied.
Chorus:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem.
Tenor:
The scribes on all the people shove
and bawl allegiance to the state,
Chorus:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi...
Tenor:
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.
Chorus:
...Dona eis requiem.
Tenor:
Dona nobis pacem.
December 19, 2018
Very beautiful poems, touching and written in a very real manner. As the preface to this book says, it is a shame that he died in the war (especially that close to the end) for he surely had his best works still ahead of him. The war matured him and his poetry, which is also visible in this book due to the inclusion of many of his early poems.
My one criticism is of the book itself: following every poem there are a few annotations with excerpts from letters or different drafts, often with the corresponding line...but the lines are not numbered, so you have to count to line 16 or whatever. A bit annoying.
Other than that I found his outlook on his future oddly relatable: "he felt discouraged about his future and had no certain conviction as to what he should do with his talents. What was his vocation?"
And in a letter he writes "I am happy with Art. I believe in Science more wholeheartedly than in Art, but what good could I do in that way?"
My one criticism is of the book itself: following every poem there are a few annotations with excerpts from letters or different drafts, often with the corresponding line...but the lines are not numbered, so you have to count to line 16 or whatever. A bit annoying.
Other than that I found his outlook on his future oddly relatable: "he felt discouraged about his future and had no certain conviction as to what he should do with his talents. What was his vocation?"
And in a letter he writes "I am happy with Art. I believe in Science more wholeheartedly than in Art, but what good could I do in that way?"
May 4, 2019
This slim volume is a real treasure house of deeply felt poetic expression. Wilfred Owen died young in combat, but left behind enough verse to qualify him as one of the true great poets of the English language. Even some of his fragments (such as "All Sounds have Been as Music") are brilliant, and his command of rhyme, rhythm, and vocabulary is second-to-none. Outside of John Keats and Clark Ashton Smith, Owen is without a doubt one of my favorite poets, and this comprehensive collection, which includes useful biographical and chronological information, is a great place to get lost in his wonderful work.
February 14, 2018
Wilfred Owen poetry literally makes me cry :'(
July 26, 2018
The imagery from Dulce et Decorum Est will haunt me for a long time. His use of consonantal rhyme is distinctive and beautifully deployed in service to his themes.
September 30, 2020
If the war he wrote about hadn't ended his life a week before armistice, Owen likely would have become one of the most revered poets of all time. This is powerful writing.
April 6, 2019
I've always been interested in the literature of World War I. I knew Wilfred Owen was a poet I wanted to get to know better. The Introduction to this collection provides a great background to Owen's life and work. Immediately following are Owen's war poems. These are the pieces that anyone who is interested in his writing are in it for. These are not only his most famous; they are not only his best; but they are pretty much the only ones worth a second reading. Owen's war poems are mature and part of the historic canon of war poems worldwide. His poems were often written in multiple drafts, and so the editor researched for the best or most final version to include in this collection, adding numerous manuscript and draft notes to each entry. This provides great background to Owen's intentions. I was assuming I was going to give this collection five-stars. But then came his earlier and immature work. As a reader, I could have honestly done without these; almost all of them are too light for my tastes or just convey too little. He was still trying to find his voice in these and you would never see any of these anthologized. This put a damper on my impression of Owen overall as a poet; his literary career is of two starkly different qualities. The editor suggests the War mature Owen immediately and for the best, and I absolutely agree. Owen's lesser poems made me want to give this collection four-stars. As a poetry collection, this book would have been much stronger with just his war poems. But then I realized, the editor was trying to do more than just build a strong collection. He wanted to give a true and historic overview to Wilfred Owen and his work. He closes the loop, and does so by adding a 1931 Memoir by Edmund Blunden at the end, along with a few handwritten drafts of one of Owen's poems. The inclusion of both the war poems and the juvenile poems; the inclusion of the introduction and memoir; the inclusion of the drafts; all this make The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen a definitive volume for anyone interested in reading his poems, whether the reader is an academic or a casual fan. Ok, I'm convinced: five-stars.
December 25, 2017
Harrowing beyond belief, Owen’s poems contain a certain quality to them that causes shock and horror while also causing the reader to exude sympathy and sadness. I can only begin to imagine the atrocities that soldiers like him experienced on the war front, by the millions they were slain and Owen captured it all within the lines of his poetry. For example, in the poem “Arms and the boy” the reader is giving a horrid picture of a young boy carrying a “bayonet-blade” getting used to the touch of its “cold steel”.
“Lend him to stroke these blind, bullet-leads, Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads”
This passage suggests a double meaning, one is that he bullet seeks to be loved by young men, the other being to actually kill the young boys that blindingly venture onto the battlefield with the bullets that entranced them. Violent delights more certainly do have violent ends. During wartime it is well known that young boys enlisted despite being too young. They thought it would be fun to shoot a gun and that perhaps they would win women over when they returned victorious, but unfortunately this naivety saw a marginally small amount return. A parent’s worst fear is to bury their own child and many tears were shed upon the coffins of the lost lambs.
“Lend him to stroke these blind, bullet-leads, Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads”
This passage suggests a double meaning, one is that he bullet seeks to be loved by young men, the other being to actually kill the young boys that blindingly venture onto the battlefield with the bullets that entranced them. Violent delights more certainly do have violent ends. During wartime it is well known that young boys enlisted despite being too young. They thought it would be fun to shoot a gun and that perhaps they would win women over when they returned victorious, but unfortunately this naivety saw a marginally small amount return. A parent’s worst fear is to bury their own child and many tears were shed upon the coffins of the lost lambs.
September 25, 2018
I read a free download version, and also found all poems missing from that version online. There are really not that many effective anti-war poems. These are among the best, and are now over 100 years old. Owen does some different sorts of things with rhyme. His selection of images is intense and in-your-face. "Strange Meeting" is one of the poems you are most likely to come across. It is set in a place after death where those from both sides meet. Even today we tend to separate the dead according to what side or nation they fought for. This poem reminds us through a brilliant dialogue that whatever death might be, all those killed in war share that same result. The other poem that sticks in my mind is a soldier talking to what these days would be called his "dog tag", representing his identity after he is found dead. The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that the language is at times dated, as might be expected. (I would only reduce it to four and a half stars, but couldn't do that here.)
December 19, 2015
Absolutely beautiful. Each and every word pierces you. I'm so glad I got to read Owen's works after persistence from those around me. I don't really read a lot of poetry but when I do it affects me. It's mesmerizing, deep and soulful. Many of them are related to war though which i try not to flinch at. My favourite poem so far is probably Storm because of it's complexity while being simple and the richness of language. It's over whelming to say the least.
His face was charges with beauty as a cloud
With glimmering lightening. When it shadowed me
I shook, and was uneasy as a tree
That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed.
And happier were it if my sap consume;
Glorious will shine the opening of my heart;
The land shall freshen that was under gloom;
What matter if all men cry aloud and start,
And women hide bleak faces in their shawl,
At those hilarious thunders of my fall?
April 27, 2014
I have always been a fan of Owen's work and I thoroughly enjoyed the Prefix and Introduction written by C.Day Lewis. It has been beautifully crafted and I loved every second of the introduction, during which I continuously analysed the differences in language from the three time zones, 1917, 1965 and 2014. However, unfortunately the book's appendix went on too long and contained some unnecessary and confusing information which detracted from the rest of the book. As well as this, the notes beneath each poem were unclear a lot of the time and caused me to lose the meaning behind the poem.
November 14, 2011
Brilliant poet whose life was cut short like so many men at that time, remember studying Dulce et decorum est at school. Owen's description of a gas attack was so vivid and you can feel the panic. Years later I discovered that one of my great grandfather's had been involved in a gas attack in WWI, I don't know where or when, I only know that it resulted in his death at the age of 45 in 1939.
Now everytime I read that section I wonder about him.
Now everytime I read that section I wonder about him.
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