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The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen (New Directions Book)

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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.

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.

Here in this book you will find some of the finest poetry that any author from Britain has ever produced. Owen writes with style and uses words in such a beautiful way that one can only wonder how he was able to do it. His non-war poems are just as astounding as his war poems and this collection is great for any reader of poetry. Highly recommended, this book will not dissapoint.

I don't typically like poetry, but I look at this book at least once a month. Wilfred Owen's writing is amazing. It helps that I'm interested in WWI in general, so if that's not of interest to you then maybe it's one to avoid. Five stars...

Seeing a posting for a new biography of Wilfred Owen reminded me to return to this anthology of his poems. Every war has produced great poets and WWI was fixed in our minds by the sensitive words of Siegfried Sassoon and especially Wilfred Owen. Writing from the trenches Owen managed to keep his eyes and mind and heart wide open while he witnessed the horrid plunder that surrounded him.. That he was able to transpose these experiences into the transcendentally beautiful poems that fill this book is a major wonder. Yes, WWII had WH Auden et al and the hungry monster machine of war was again made into words. And poets wrote of Korea, of Vietnam, and other countries' poets wrote of other wars. But again the threats and facts cloud our lives and world, and their words seemingly fall on deaf ears. Would that we could take heed of the poems of such perfection as those here by Wilfred Owen. This is the time to study this book........daily.

I was first exposed to the poems of Wilfred Owen in high school and it has had a lasting inpact on my appreciation of poetry and the horrors of war. The imagery that Owen uses in his classic Dolce et Decurum est about the callacousness and futility of modern warefare leaves one with both awe and disgust, especially when concluded by the saying sweetness and honor is to die for one's country. Tragically whose knows what Owen might have produced had he lived longer.

An outstanding edition of Owen's work. The noted British poet C Day Lewis produced what is likely the final edition of Owen's work. Included are all his extant poems, including minor works. Also included are a very interesting Introduction by Day Lewis and an enlightening memoir by the poet Edmund Blunden. The War Poems, of course, are the heart of the book and included are some of the most famous English poems of the 20th century. Reading these famous poems with all of Owen's war poetry only magnifies the powerful effect of Owen's verse.

Unfortunately, war is an unmitigated part of the human experience.

In places, Owen gives us the guns of war--brutal, percussive descriptions of death as in "Anthem"; in other places, Owen laments delicately as in "Futility" (pg. 135) which is difficult to read without becoming tearful.

Owen shows us a world "wound with war's hard wire" that is "but the trembling of a flare," but Owen also perceives beauty "in hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight" and even finds peace "where shell storms spouted reddest spate."

Owen did not believe that we could fully understand war except we share in the "sorrowful dark of hell" as he experienced it. For us civilians who, thanks to brave soldiers, have not experienced war first-hand, Wilfred Owen brings us as near as we may possibly get.

For me, Owen is the greatest poet ever to write about war. His poetry articulates the duality of "war's hard wire"--the barbs of painful experience and the strong wire that binds our hearts in fellowship and in the "silentness of duty."

I am not a poetry nut, I usually can't stomach the stuff. However, this is an exceptional read that can only be summarized as moving. When he describes teaching Christ to drill all day, it was a jaw dropping moment. I have not done the description justice but I invite you to read it for yourself.