The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen (New Directions Book) [Paperback]

Wilfred Owen (Author), C. Day Lewis (Editor), Edmund Blunden (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 1965

“The very content of Owen’s poems was, and still is, pertinent to the feelings of young men facing death and the terrors of war.” —The New York Times Book Review

Wilfred Owen was twenty-two when he enlisted in the Artists’ Rifle Corps during World War I. By the time Owen was killed at the age of 25 at the Battle of Sambre, he had written what are considered the most important British poems of WWI. This definitive edition is based on manuscripts of Owen’s papers in the British Museum and other archives.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: New Directions; Revised edition (January 17, 1965)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811201325
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201322
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #310,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Harrowing beauty March 27, 2000

By Jonathan T. Smillie

Format:Paperback

War and poetry- two concepts infrequently mentioned, much less allied, in the same breath. Yet during World War I a number of writers took the horrific experiences of the Western Front and turned them into some of the twentieth century's finest, most disturbing poetry. Among these "war poets", Wilfred Owen is indisputably one of the greatest.

From the opening declaration " Above all, I am not concerned with Poetry... My subject is War, and the pity of War..." through the dreamlike madness of "Strange Meeting" to the elegiac fury of "Anthem for Doomed Youth", Owen hones the poetic craft he learned as a juvenile romantic versifier into a rapier on which he skewers the futility of the war, the blind official stupidity which kept it going, and the inhumanity shown by each side to its own men as well as the enemy.

Killed in action not long before the Armistice, Owen saw little publication of his work. However, his verse- carefully arranged, meticulously researched and documented by Cecil Day Lewis- is not only his epitaph. As relevant and affecting today as in 1918, it's as fine a counter-argument as any ever written against those who dismiss poetry as flowery nonsense. And for the rest of us? Few media can express the true nature and terrible costs of the First World War as eloquently as poetry at its finest can- and Owen provides it in plenty.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bleak Genius of Wilfred Owen June 3, 2004

By Paul Rance

Format:Paperback

This is a wonderful book, and one of the most powerful collections of anti-war poems ever put together. Wilfred Owen was not a man who was describing war from the safety of his own home. He was in the thick of it, and he paid the ultimate price.

'Anthem for Doomed Youth' may just be the most powerful of all anti-war poems, and it was voted 8th in a list of Britain's favourite poems in a BBC poll. This poem like Owen's work generally is written in an unpretentious style. His poetry is very moving, but without being sentimental. He's painting pictures with words, and the pictures aren't pretty.

All his renowned work is here, including 'Dulce et Decorum est', 'Disabled', and 'Mental Cases'. The notes are very interesting, as you'd expect from a literary heavyweight like C. Day Lewis, and there's also some of Owen's non war poetry, but that's still bleak!

If you want to buy any book of Owen's work, I'd recommend this one for starters.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A good edition August 20, 2011

By John Everard

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

At last, a good edition of Owen's poems! This one has a table of contents that works properly, and the poems are sensibly formatted. It is a pleasure to use and includes all Owen's best-known poems. I'd have given five stars except that, curiously, Owen's preface to his work is mis-formatted so that it is laid out like a poem instead of prose. But this is only a minor niggle (though perhaps one that can be fixed in a future edition?)