The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry

by Various, Jon Silkin (Introduction), Ivor Gurney

This fine collection brings together a comprehensive selection, and in his informative introduction Jon Silkin traces the changing mood of the poets - from patriotism through anger and compassion to an active desire for social change. The work of Sassoon, Owen, Blunden and Rosenberg is well represented, but also included are less familiar war poets, such as Hardy and Lawrence, war poems written by women poets and translations of verse from Germany, France, Italy and Russia. The shattering, ironic realism, tenderness and regret reflected in these poems encompass the waste and violence war.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, War, World War I, History, 20th Century, Nonfiction

291 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 26, 1979

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

My experience with poetry anthologies is limited as an adult reader. Given my pleasant experience with this volume, that is likely to change. Over the last few years while browsing poetry sections I have discovered that this anthology is near ubiquitous. I feel grateful I finally approached it. I would be curious about corresponding verse from Turkey and the Balkans.

I discovered a few new poets I’ll approach again and my estimations of Sassoon, Owen and Blunden were undoubtedly confirmed.

[Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harrowing and heartbreaking poems from WW1, mostly written by soldiers in the trenches 100 years ago.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you, from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

― John McCrae

[[ J o ] · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first read of this book of poetry was purely academically driven and that, as I've discovered in retrospect, has left me feeling nothing but a short wind blowing through a barren wasteland for poetry. Since leaving all academia behind, except via my own volition, I have found a delight in poetry I never knew existed.

Previously I was confused at the layout of this book and I retain that confusion now. Although the poetry is put in to categories, they don't seem to feel as if they should exist. It runs in order of how the War panned out, yes, but that is as far as it allows. There is no contents page to let you know even where those of this order begins and ends and the introduction is tiresome.

The poetry itself, of course, is accessible and rather transcends the giving of stars. It acts as history as much as long prose does, though there are those poems that I did not feel with my heart as much as others. Some that were almost terribly written-only because the author was not a great poet. The poetry by women is probably one of the most important parts of this book and I think they should have been collated altogether, as opposed to how it is, chronologically.

What else can you say about poetry that describes human atrocity?


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[archive ☄ · Rating 5 out of 5]

everyday for the past few weeks i've gone out into the backyard to sit in the grass, drink some iced coffee, and read this book. sometimes i'd tear through dozens of poems in a single go, other times just a handful, glancing up every few lines to admire the daffodils and duck as a bumblebee went tumbling by.

this is a book best read in a warm and kindly place, trust me - the poems littering its pages will pull and tear at your heartstrings until they come to pieces in your hands. war, death, loneliness, grief, loss... each of them in every word, and between every line. you will come to know these writers intimately: rupert brooke, the idealist; robert graves, sharp-tongued but weary; siegfried sassoon, indefatigable; wilfred owen, unflinching; charles sorley, the bright-eyed darling of the trench poets; vera brittain, the nurse whose heart encompassed the world entire. and leagues of others. the sweat and the grime and the sorrow and the hope and the misty light of the dawn are crusted onto every word in this book — you feel like you're right there with them, sunk in the mud, nudging your mate in the ribs, giving a wan smile despite it all.

lord, do i love this book. looking at it, you can tell: its spine is worn, it's bruised and blue all over from stanzas underlined in crooked ink and smudges from my thumb, every one of sorley's poems are dog-eared, grass stains and errant drops of melted iced coffee all over. it's just one of those books. the kind that sits on your shelf and vibrates, glows, because it knows it's loved. because it can't wait to be in your hands, your kindly, familiar hands, and read all over again.


light many lamps and gather round his bed.
lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
he's young; hated war; how should he die
when cruel old campaigners win safe through?

but death replied: 'i choose him,' so he went,
and there was silence in the summer night;
silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

— siegfried sassoon

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very interesting information in the introduction that I hadn't realised. It's all quite obvious in retrospect but it was still a series of lightbulb moments for me so I'll make reference to it. The reason why there were hundreds of thousands of poems written and published during World War One was because:

- poetry was for most of Edwardian society, a part of everyday life;
- The media was also almost wholly print-based (cinema was still very much in its infancy);
- Victorian and Edwardian educational reforms resulted in increased literacy;
- the army which Britain sent to fight was the most widely and deeply educated in her history.

I find it very hard to imagine an era when poetry was so much a part of day-to-day life. Although I have never learnt the skill of appreciating poetry, as I read through a succession of these poems, and triggered by certain words or phrases, I started to get images of a grim, kaleidoscopic mix of lice, blood, death, patriotic songs, mad, futility, despair, absurdity, sickness, fear etc. It proved to be a powerful and moving experience.

As I was reading this book, I was also reading Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves. Sometimes the two books worked in tandem. Robert Graves describes the horror of The Battle of Loos and there - in this volume - are poems inspired by Loos.

One very small but moving moment was reading a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. When he actively encouraged his young son John to go to war he was expecting triumph and heroism. John died in the First World War, at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at age 18. After his son's death, Kipling wrote...

If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied.

An important document of how World War One was experienced by a wide range of articulate and thoughtful people that brings the experience vividly to life.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some nice selections

[Timothy Dymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘He is risen now that was long asleep,
Risen out of vaulted places dark and deep.
In the growing dust the faceless demon stands,
And the moon he crushes in his strong, black hands.’

The German poet George Heym’s 'War’ was written in 1911 - predating the Great War but also prefiguring the poetry that arose from it. In 1912 Heym also wrote ‘Why do you you visit me, white moths, so often’ which concluded with the lines:

‘Who opens the countries to us after death?
And who in the gateway of the monstrous rune?
What do the dying see, that makes them turn
Their eyes’ blind whiteness round so terribly?’

The First World War had many prophets: geopolitical thinkers who believed a reckoning between Empires was inevitable; ‘race theorists’ who thought that soft Europeans could only reinvigorate themselves through war; war novelists with fantasies about their countries being invaded. This collection of First World War Poetry also shows that poets were aware of the horrific possibilities of future war prior to 1914. And they were not all taken with ‘war fever’ or patriotism. One interesting detail I learned from this book is that the famous lines from Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’

‘If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.’

Is actually a copy of the decided less patriotic ‘Drummer Hodge’ by Thomas Hardy (set during the Boer War)

‘Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree’

This is mainly a collection of English poets, but includes Germans, French, Italians, and Russians. There are only two women in this edition: the Russians Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva. Editor Jon Silkin doesn’t reference Paul Fussell’s ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’ - and doesn’t seem to hold with Fussell’s arguments about the War bringing a fundamental cultural shift away from Romanticism to harsher, more ‘modern’ aesthetics. Instead he emphasises the continuities of English World War One poets with Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, etc. However something not continuous between the War poets and the Romantics is that the latter were more sceptical of patriotic calls to conflict. For example, Shelley in the ‘Revolt of Islam’ writes

‘We all are brethren - even the slaves who kill’

Whereas the far too often repeated ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae concludes (after the misleadingly pacifistic sounding ‘We are the Dead. Short days ago/We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow’)

‘Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.’

The First World War poets often combined ‘jingoism’ with a somber awareness of the consequences of war. At its worst this combination comes across as a cult of death - ‘our glorious dead’ forever judging the living on whether we measure up to their sacrifice. However the sheer scale of industrialised warfare exemplified by the First World War demonstrated that individual bravery, valour, or sacrifice mean very little if everybody is being mown down by machine guns - hero or coward alike. The nations that fought in the First World War are now far more likely to do ‘remote’ warfare: through specialists, private contractors, and drones. Modern warfare’s contradictions, as articulated in First World War poetry, are just too much to bear.

[Book Buying With Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What passing bells for these who die as cattle?"

Picked this up after singing the Britten War Requiem and experiencing the power and depth of emotion in Wilfred Owen's poetry. Took me forever to read, but it's an incredible collection.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual reading, but I really enjoyed it! This anthology contains poetry that was written during WWI or soon after, the poets all having experienced some aspect of the war. Because the poetry was written during that era, it has poetry forms that were popular during that time, many poems made up of quatrains and some sonnets. I enjoy these forms better than some of the more modern forms used today. It made for easier reading for me, while I was still challenged and moved by the subject matter of the poems.

This arrangement is good for someone not experienced in poetry because I know other readers were bothered by the fact of publication dates being hard to find (they are in the back of the book! ) or that there should have been more poems by a certain poet. I was not such a specialist to care for either of those things. The anthology is arranged in five sections from " I.Your Country Needs You " which covered everything from responses to the war, recruitment, and training to section" V. Peace " which covers the end of the war and it's aftermath. The poems covered a wide variety of perspectives and issues. It was thought-provoking and not the depressive downer I thought it would be. I started at the beginning and read through the sections; the benefit to this being that you feel as though you experience these emotions and feelings in the poems from the beginning of the war to the end. I've been a lover seeing her soldier off to war, I have listened as God hears prayers from both sides of the war asking Him for the same things, And I have watched a soldier wonder if he can just drag his fellow farmer/soldier in the sun so that it will it bring him back to life like it has every morning to plant. They were beautiful.

[Antoine · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the books from my semester-o'-world-war-one, in the spring of 1990. This one was, I think, from the English class, though it may have also been assigned reading for the history class as well. The poetry itself runs the gamut, from the conventional and sentimental "pep" works from early in the war (some from poets, like Rupert Brooke, who died before ever seeing combat at all, and others from poets too old for combat, like Kipling), to full fledged "trench poetry" by the likes of Wilfrid Owen, Robert Graves, and Siegfried Sassoon. There is also a nice sampling of work by German and French Poets. There isn't much in the way of effective commentary or organization, but the raw material is all here, at a moderate price and a convenient size.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of both poetry and World War I, I was not a little disappointed by this collection. Honestly, most of the poems here are not very good. Never a fan of rhyming poems or strict literalism, I maybe should've known better. These are almost stiflingly thematic and while some good poets are represented here, it's not their best work that's represented here. Plus, it's all British poets, which doesn't seem quite right since there were other countries involved in the war as far as I can recall...I mean, I wasn't there.

[Marnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A miña comfort read. podería falar disto durante 48 horas solo pausando para darlle un sorbito ao meu mencía.

[Dan Lutts · Rating 5 out of 5]

British soldiers in World War I did something the British and Canadian soldiers who fought in World War II didn't do to wile away the hours in the trenches: they wrote poetry about how the war affected them. It turns out civilians wrote poems about how the war affected them on the home front too.

The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry contains poems the soldiers and civilians wrote about the war. The poems are divided into five themes: Your Country Needs You, Somewhere in France, Action, Blighty, and Peace. Some of the poems were written by England's top poets such as Siegfried Sasson, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Robert Frost, Vera Brittain, and Rudyard Kipling. Others were written by lesser known or first time poets such as Harold Monro, Margaret Sackville, John McCrae, and Rose Macaulay.

The book also contains notes, short biographies of the poets, a glossary of terms use about the Western Front, titles of other anthologies of World War I poetry, and an index of each poem's title and first line.

If you're interested in World War I or in wartime poetry, this is the book for you.

[Kyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 / 5 stars, rounded up because this collection is so well-done, and includes both commentary on the poems, a glossary and biographies of all writers.

I often struggle rating poetry collections, especially when they are 'subject'-based and contain multiple authors and style. Inevitably, you will like some poems more than other poems and some hit you harden than others. Similarly, it's next to impossible to like or feel engaged with all poems in a collection, so yeah there were multiple poems in this collection that didn't really resonate with me. However, there were just so many strong ones that blew me away; I knew some of them already of course, but there were many I hadn't encountered before either.

The way this collection is organised is done really well and it fit the heavy topic of the collection, without becoming either too 'monotone' or disjointed at any point. As mentioned above the collection also contains a lot of explanation and other helpful materials for reading and understanding the poems, but you can also just read the poems as you go which allows for different kinds of reading.

I remain baffled by the output of poetry during this shocking and bleak period in the history, and the eloquence these writers used in putting the different experiences on paper is mind-blowingly good. The collection does not shy away from the horrors and critiques, but also includes poems about camaraderie and those who were more nuanced about the war, and so--I think--gives a good overview of the war opinions as expressed in poetry in the UK.

[Eavan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not technically "finished", but I don't know why I ever expected myself to pick this up and read it through like a novel. In this second edition (a third edition, finished in 2007, is available here), George Walter has supplied the hits (Brooke, McCrae, Owens), as well as expanding on his favourites (Edward Thomas, Blunden, Rosenberg), while not forgetting to include those voices who had been forgot hitherto (Ungaretti, a host of women, etc.).

The collection is sobering, powerful, and breathtaking in its variation. War is awful, who'd've thought? While not a comparison, when I struggled with PTSD and the emotional fallout of it, I often struggled to articulate the blinding pain I constantly felt, even in a medium like poetry. These poets who could capture that feeling in their work naturally feel very close to me then, and while I'll never produce like them, I appreciate the small, shared understanding of no understanding at all. I fell particular in love with some of the poets only represented by a poem or two, and has inspired me to look at them further, as any anthology is wont to do.

Unfortunately, I've been reading on-and-off a library copy the past three months, but I recommend buying this or the newer edition if interested. Walter's introduction was equal-parts stuffy and hilarious, probably owing to his stuffiness. I couldn’t understand it by the midpoint and it seems to have been written to a more expert audience versed in the philosophies of poetry, of which I am not a part of. Definetly a must-peruse for those interested in WWI though. You can't read this through like any old book: the emotional intensity, to be truly experienced, leaves one chewing on a few pages for days.

[Meen · Rating 3 out of 5]

8/23/11: Jeezus, this took forever. I couldn't review this if I tried b/c it ended up being the book I carried around for reading on the subway, and I don't actually go into the city that much, so I'm rarely on the subway. The introduction was really long, and the editor suggests that Rosenberg is the superior poet to Owen (the other "great" WWI poet), but I liked Owen's poems the best. I would like to read more of his work. This was also a lesson that I can't read big collections of poetry. I need to read little bits instead. (See what happened to my reading of the Anne Sexton collection, for example.)

3/18/11: Ever since my first English Comp class, I've noticed this deep affinity for the literature, especially the poetry, and history (and later the art) of the First World War era. It affects me so profoundly (and in such a personal way, with such an odd intensity), that I always say that if I believed in reincarnation (I don't.), I would swear that I was a soldier in the Great War in a previous life. I've only just started the introduction to this volume and I'm already entranced.

[Yara (The Narratologist) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: I read the second edition, published in 1981. From what I understand, Penguin now sells George Walter’s In Flanders Fields repackaged as the new Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. Check which edition you’re getting if you decide to buy a copy!

Now, before you all grab your pitchforks and come after me for giving anything less than five stars to a book that has work by Wilfred Owen in it, let me explain: I did not deduct points for the poetry itself. Where this collection fails, quite spectacularly, is editing. Jon Silkin was undoubtedly a very intelligent man who knew a lot this particular period, but I have issues with many of his decisions.


Read More

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry (Second edition) edited by Jon Silkin and David McDuff is a collection of poetry from and about the WWI. Silkin and McDuff increased the number of poems in translation included in the collection. There are poems translated from German, French, Italian, Russian, and Hebrew, and Silkin was a poet himself. As expressed in the not at the beginning, “For some, war was moral athletics; others looked forward to the experience of war as a ‘vacation from life’ — a vacation from a society disjoined by class and constrained by the rigid structures of labour.” (page 12)

Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2012/11/t...

[Aileen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is pretty awful. The organization is impossible to figure out. The editing is lousy, and the driving force of the introduction seems to be to track how anthologies over the years have defined the poetry of the first world war. There isn't a table of contents that lists the poems! There is no way of finding poems by author, only a title/first line index. And they aren't dated. So... thanks a lot for thematically organizing the poems into "Before the War" or "Behind the Lines" or "In the Trenches" but seriously, difficult to use. Crap volume.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some good poems, some poor poems, some rough poems and some I loved in this book. Poetry was much more part of life in 1914 and was a much more natural way for people to express their thoughts and feelings than it is now.
The poems are arranged thematically, not chronologically or by author, but you can read them in any order you feel like. I dipped into the book over a period of about three months.

[Annette Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always like to dip into this in the run up to Rememberance Sunday. It's a good way of reminding me of what those men went through, physically and emotionally, almost 100 years ago. This collection has both the classics and some lesser known poems and includes poets from both sides of the conflict.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were a huge number of lives sacrificed in vain in the first world war. Some of them were poets of the highest caliber. Other great poets survived the battles and returned home. Whether you are reading the poetry of someone who died in the war, or survived, this collection is one of the most moving you will ever read. Highly recommended.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Text

Prelude

--On the idle hill of summer, A. E. Housman

1. Your Country Needs You

'Let the foul Scene proceed'
--Channel Firing, Thomas Hardy
--The Eve of War, Geoffrey Faber
--On Receiving the First News of the War, Isaac Rosenberg
--The Marionettes, Walter de la Mare
--August, 1914, John Masefield
--1914: Peace, Rupert Brooke
--Happy is England Now, John Freeman
--'For All We Have and Are', Rudyard Kipling
--This is no case of petty Right or Wrong, Edward Thomas
--To Germany, Charles Hamilton Sorley
--The Poets are Waiting, Harold Monro
--The Dilemma, J. C. Squire

'Who's for the khaki suit'
--The Trumpet, Edward Thomas
--The Call, Jessie Pope
--Recruiting, E. A. Mackintosh
--Soldier: Twentieth Century, Isaac Rosenberg
--Youth in Arms I, Harold Monro
--'I don't want to be a soldier', Soldiers' song
--The Conscript, Wilfrid Gibson
--Rondeau of a Conscientious Objector, D. H. Lawrence
--1914: Safety, Rupert Brooke
--'Now that you too must shortly go the way', Eleanor Farjeon

In Training
--The Kiss, Siegfried Sassoon
--Arms and the Boy, Wilfred Owen
--'All the hills and vales along', Charles Hamilton Sorley
--'We are Fred Karno's army', Soldiers' song
--Song of the Dark Ages, Francis Brett Young
--Sonnets 1917: Servitude, Ivor Gurney
--In Barracks, Siegfried Sassoon
--The Last Post, Robert Graves
--In Training, Edward Shanks
--Youth in Arms II: Soldier, Harold Monro
--'Men Who March Away' (Song of the Soldiers), Thomas Hardy
--Marching Men, Marjorie Pickthall
--The Send-off, Wilfred Owen
--Fragment, Rupert Brooke

2. Somewhere in France

In Trenches
--First Time In, Ivor Gurney
--Break of Day in the Trenches, Isaac Rosenberg
--'Bombed last night', Soldiers' song
--Breakfast, Wilfrid Gibson
--In the Trenches, Richard Aldington
--Winter Warfare, Edgell Rickword
--Futility, Wilfred Owen
--Exposure, Wilfred Owen
--'We're here because we're here', Soldiers' song
--Poem. Abbreviated from the Conversation of Mr. T. E. H., Ezra Pound
--Illusions, Edmund Blunden
--The Silent One, Ivor Gurney
--Moonrise over Battlefield, Edgell Rickword
--The Redeemer, Siegfried Sassoon
--Serenade, Ivor Gurney

Behind the Lines
--Returning, We Hear The Larks, Isaac Rosenberg
--After War, Ivor Gurney
--Grotesque, Frederic Manning
--Louse Hunting, Isaac Rosenberg
--At Senlis Once, Edmund Blunden
--Crucifix Corner, Ivor Gurney
--Vlamertinghe: Passing the Chateau, July, 1917, Edmund Blunden
--Dead Cow Farm, Robert Graves
--The Sower (Eastern France), Laurence Binyon
--August, 1918 (In a French Village), Maurice Baring
--'Therefore is the name of it called Babel', Osbert Sitwell
--War, Lesley Coulson

Comrades of War
--Canadians, Ivor Gurney
--Banishment, Siegfried Sassoon
--Woodbine Willie, G. A. Studdert Kennedy
--Apologia pro Poemate Meo, Wilfred Owen
--My Company, Herbert Read
--Before the Battle, Martin Armstrong
--Nameless Men, Edward Shillito
--Greater Love, Wilfred Owen
--In Memoriam Private D. Sutherland killed in Action in the German Trench, May 16, 1916, and the Others who Died, E. A. Mackintosh
--To his Love, Ivor Gurney
--Trench Poets, Edgell Rickword

3. Action

Rendezvous with Death
--Before Action, W. N. Hodgson
--Into Battle, Julian Grenfell
--Lights Out, Edward Thomas
--'I have a rendezvous with Death', Alan Seeger
--Two Sonnets, Charles Hamilton Sorley
--1914: The Soldier, Rupert Brooke
--The Mother, May Herschel-Clark
--'I tracked a dead man down a trench', W. S. S. Lyon
--Ballad of the Three Spectres, Ivor Gurney
--The Question, Wilfrid Gibson
--The Soldier Addresses His Body, Edgell Rickword
--The Day's March, Robert Nichols

Battle
--Eve of Assault: Infantry Going Down to Trenches, Robert Nichols
--Headquarters, Gilbert Frankau
--Bombardment, D. H. Lawrence
--The Shell, H. Smalley Sarson
--Bombardment, Richard Aldington
--On Somme, Ivor Gurney
--Before the Charge, Patrick MacGill
--It's a Queer Time, Robert Graves
--The Face, Frederic Manning
--Gethsemane, Rudyard Kipling
--Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen
--The Navigators, W. J. Turner
--Spring Offensive, Wilfred Owen
--Counter-Attack, Siegfried Sassoon
--Youth in Arms III: Retreat, Harold Monro

Aftermath
--Back to Rest, W. N. Hodgson
--Dulce et Decorum est, Wilfred Owen
--Field Ambulance in Retreat, May Sinclair
--A Memory, Margaret Sackville
--Dead Man's Dump, Isaac Rosenberg
--Youth in Arms IV: Carrion, Harold Monro
--A Dead Boche, Robert Graves
--Soliloquy II, Richard Aldington
--Butchers and Tombs, Ivor Gurney
--A Private, Edward Thomas
--The Volunteer, Herbert Asquith
--In Flanders Fields, John McCrae
--1914: The Dead, Rupert Brooke
--1914: The Dead, Rupert Brooke
--'When you see millions of the mouthless dead', Charles Hamilton Sorley
--Strange Meeting, Wilfred Owen
--Prisoners, F. W. Harvey
--His Mate, Wilfrid Gibson
--Epitaphs: The Coward, Rudyard Kipling
--The Deserter, Gilbert Frankau
--My Boy Jack, Rudyard Kipling
--Easter Monday, Eleanor Farjeon

4. Blighty

Going Back
--'I Want to go home', Soldiers' song
--If We Return (Rondeau), F. W. Harvey
--Blighty, Ivor Gurney
--War Girls, Jessie Pope
--Home Service, Geoffrey Faber
--The Survivor Comes Home, Robert Graves
--Sick Leave, Siegfried Sassoon
--Reserve, Richard Aldington
--Wife and Country, Gilbert Frankau
--Girl to Soldier on Leave, Isaac Rosenberg
--The Pavement, Francis Brett Young
--Not to Keep, Robert Frost
--Going Back, D. H. Lawrence

The Other War
--'I wore a tunic', Soldiers' song
--'Blighters', Siegfried Sassoon
--Ragtime, Wilfrid Gibson
--Ragtime, Osbert Sitwell
--The Admonition: To Betsey, Helen Parry Eden
--Air-Raid, Wilfrid Gibson
--Zeppelins, Nancy Cunard
--'Education', Pauline Barrington
--Socks, Jessie Pope
--A War Film, Theresa Hooley
--The War Films, Sir Henry Newbolt
--The Dancers (During a Great Battle, 1916), Edith Sitwell
--Epitaphs: A Son, Rudyard Kipling
--'I looked up from my writing', Thomas Hardy
--Picnic July 1917, Rose Macaulay
--As the Team's Head-Brass, Edward Thomas
--The Farmer, 1917, Fredegond Shove
--May, 1915, Charlotte Mew

Lucky Blighters
--'They', Siegfried Sassoon
--Portrait of a Coward, Ivor Gurney
--In A Soldiers' Hospital I: Pluck, Eva Dobell
--In A Soldiers' Hospital II: Gramophone Tunes, Eva Dobell
--Hospital Sanctuary, Vera Brittain
--Convalescence, Amy Lowell
--Smile, Smile, Smile, Wilfred Owen
--The Beau Ideal, Jessie Pope
--The Veteran, Margaret Postgate Cole
--Repression of War Experience, Siegfried Sassoon
--A Child's Nightmare, Robert Graves
--Mental Cases, Wilfred Owen
--The Death-Bed, Siegfried Sassoon

5. Peace

Everyone Sang
--'When this bloody war is over', Soldiers' song
--Preparations for Victory, Edmund Blunden
--'Après la guerre finie', Soldiers' song
--Everyone Sang, Siegfried Sassoon
--Peace Celebration, Osbert Sitwell
--Paris, November 11, 1918, May Wedderburn Cannan
--It Is Near Toussaints, Ivor Gurney
--Two Fusiliers, Robert Graves
--Report on Experience, Edmund Blunden
--Dead and Buried, G. A. Studdert Kennedy

The Dead and the Living
--For the Fallen, Laurence Binyon
--The Cenotaph, Charlotte Mew
--The Silence, Sir John Adcock
--Armistice Day, 1921, Edward Shanks
--'Out of the Mouths of Babes -', F. W. Harvey
--Memorial Tablet (Great War), Siegfried Sassoon
--Elegy in a Country Churchyard, G. K. Chesterton
--Epitaphs: Common Form, Rudyard Kipling
--Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries, A. E. Housman
--On Passing the New Menin Gate, Siegfried Sassoon
--Hugh Selwyn Mauberley: V, Ezra Pound
--War and Peace, Edgell Rickword
--A Generation (1917), J. C. Squire
--Disabled, Wilfred Owen
--Strange Hells, Ivor Gurney
--The Superfluous Woman, Vera Brittain
--Men Fade Like Rocks, J. W. Turner

'Have you forgotten yet?'
--High Wood, Philip Johnstone
--Picture-Show, Siegfried Sassoon
--Festubert, 1916, Edmund Blunden
--Lamplight, May Wedderburn Cannan
--Recalling War, Robert Graves
--War Books, Ivor Gurney
--Aftermath, Siegfried Sassoon
--If ye Forget, G. A. Studdert Kennedy
--The Midnight Skaters, Edmund Blunden
--Ancient History, Siegfried Sassoon
--The Next War, Osbert Sitwell
--The War Generation: Ave, Vera Brittain
--To a Conscript of 1940, Herbert Read

Coda

--Ancre Sunshine, Edmund Blunden

Notes
A Glossary of the Western Front
Biographies
Further Reading
Poem Acknowledgements
Index of Titles and First Lines

[Trevor Seigler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The First World War was easily one of the most horrific conflicts in modern memory, and yet it fueled a wealth of great literature about war, humanity, and loss. This edition of poems, courtesy of the Penguin Classics imprint, represents a stunning catalog of poems that capture every aspect of the war's destruction of both men and landscapes. There are the obvious war poets (Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke), but I also enjoyed the poems from figures I was vaguely aware of or I had never heard of before. From the excitement attending the declaration of war to the pain and agony of sorting through the rubble four years later, these poems show the loss of innocence and how far we devolved from 1914 to 1918. All the poets are English or American, I think; it would've been interesting to see authors from other nations represented, but I can accept that the English and American authors were the more obvious ones to include (the best novel about the war came from Germany, by Erich Maria Remarque, but the English cornered the market on war poetry). This is a collection that has quite a few surprises alongside the heavy hitters (Rudyard Kipling's gradual dissolution with the war is captured in the verses of his that are presented here), and it solidifies the First World War as the conflict that gave birth to so much creativity even as it unleashed death on a previously unimaginable and industrial scale.

[Karlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in 1988 a year after I left the British Army after realising the military life and it’s moral obligation to the state was not for me. This collection is the best I’ve read on the theme of WW1 and saw me seek out a full collection of Ungaretti, and presented my first reading of Walt Whitman (in the introduction) and E. E. Cummings all of whom are now favourites thanks to this book.

Of course it has Owen and Sassoon but also many new to me. Each and every one is more than readable and many are harrowing.

The inclusion of other voices is brave though a minor note to overwhelming numbers from the British view, but this isn’t about sides but the experience of the soldier himself.

I applaud Silkin and thank Penguin for presenting what may be a definitive introduction to the poetry of WW1. Highly recommended.

(From a reviewer who mainly reads Beat poetry and haiku).

[Katie Barty-Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

[Mando B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully harrowing and at times brought a tear to my eye. Ordered thematically, initially I thought it wouldn't work and wow was I wrong. Yes you have the big names in here like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, yet the majority of this collection, and some of my favourites, are made up of nurses, civilians and unfortunately most of the dead.
To go from hope to despair to accepting death is what I found most moving.

[Mahmoud Keshk · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest poetry anthologies I've ever read.

[Miles Row · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good range mostly within the limits of white English men and women writing about the western front. Not the breadth of British citizens involved in the First World War let alone wider First World War poets involved not connected to British ex-colonies.

[Scout Riches · Rating 5 out of 5]

War is bad, I am sad