The Great Poets: The War Poetry of Wilfred Owen

by Wilfred Owen (Writer), Anton Lesser (Narrator)

No poet is more closely identified with the First World War than Wilfred Owen. His striking body of work, grim to the point of brutality yet, at the same time, majestic and awe-inspiring, defines the war for us. It is in each of these famous poems that Owen reflects on the four terrible months that he lived through; he conveys the experience of war, the death, the destruction and the filth, through a unique poetic language and a bold artistic vision. This anthology collects 49 of Owen's iconic poems and serves not only as a perfect introduction to his verse but also as a commemoration of the sacrifice that was made by an entire generation of young men.

Genres: Poetry

Audiobook

Published January 1, 2013

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[Clay Davis]

Some very profoundly moving poetry.

[Susete Kunkel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me personally

[Beth Huddleston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully grim.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anton Lesser delivers the verses so beautifully that it broke my heart.

[G L · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually have a hard time taking in poetry. It's not that I don't like it, nor that I don't read it, but the intensity of language and the combination of mystery and heightened emotion very quickly overwhelm my ability to focus. Moreover, when I read poetry in print, I often struggle to bring the words to life. They lie there in their rows and piles of black on white and I know they have something to say, but getting them up off the page and into the air to be breathed in and heard is hard work that is not always successful for me. For this reason, I always appreciate getting to listen to poetry when it is read aloud well.

I suppose I am in good company in loving Wilfred Owen's poetry best of all the WWI poetry I've encountered. That last sentence may not be all that meaningful because writing it made me suddenly wonder how many of those poets I've actually read. Still, of those I have read, it is Owen's work that speaks most to me. Admittedly it is hard speech: such beautiful language and surprising juxtaposition wrenches us out of comfort or complacency at the same time that it lulls us with the beauty of horror. I suppose that one of the things I like about Owen's poems is the accessibility of his imagery--no puzzling over obscure references to private events that the reader cannot possibly apprehend. I suppose that one of Owen's gifts is his ability to illumine the private parts of so public catastrophe as WWI with a clarity that the reader cannot escape. A clarity that makes him hard for me to read because if I read, then I cannot escape, and if I skim, then I am not digesting anything, so I usually wind up picking a little among the lines and wandering away. Maybe I'm lazy to do that. Maybe I'm scared. This audio helped me through that. Anton Lesser does an outstanding job of giving this work its voice, and I wound up listening to the whole thing in 2 sessions, just letting poem after poem wash over me. By the end, I think that made for a more powerful experience than trying to really focus on 2 or 3 poems at a time would have been.

[Randi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course Wilfred Owen's poetry is haunting and biting. But this 5-star rating is also for Anton Lesser's incredibly expressive performance.