First World War Poems

by Andrew Motion

The First World War produced some of the most haunting and memorable poetry of our age. In this compelling anthology, the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion guides us through both the horror and the pity of that conflict, from the trenches of the Western Front to reflections from our own age. With a generous selection of our best-loved war poets, First World War Poems also returns lesser known pieces to the light. This mesmerizing book reminds us how the poetry of that time has, more than any art form, come to stand testament to the grief and outrage occasioned by World War I.

Genres: Poetry, World War I, History, War

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.

Motion was appointed Poet Laureate on 1 May 1999, following the death of Ted Hughes, the previous incumbent. The Nobel Prize-winning Northern Irish poet and translator Seamus Heaney had ruled himself out for the post. Breaking with the tradition of the laureate retaining the post for life, Motion stipulated that he would stay for only ten years. The yearly stipend of £200 was increased to £5,000 and he received the customary butt of sack.

He wanted to write "poems about things in the news, and commissions from people or organisations involved with ordinary life," rather than be seen a 'courtier'. So, he wrote "for the TUC about liberty, about homelessness for the Salvation Army, about bullying for ChildLine, about the foot and mouth outbreak for the Today programme, about the Paddington rail disaster, the 11 September attacks and Harry Patch for the BBC, and more recently about shell shock for the charity Combat Stress, and climate change for the song cycle I've finished for Cambridge University with Peter Maxwell Davies." In 2003, Motion wrote Regime change, a poem in protest at Invasion of Iraq from the point of view of Death walking the streets during the conflict, and in 2005, Spring Wedding in honour of the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker Bowles. Commissioned to write in the honour of 109 year old Harry Patch, the last surviving 'Tommy' to have fought in World War I, Motion composed a five part poem, read and received by Patch at the Bishop's Palace in Wells in 2008. As laureate, he also founded the Poetry Archive an on-line library of historic and contemporary recordings of poets reciting their own work.

Motion remarked that he found some of the duties attendant to the post of poet laureate difficult and onerous and that the appointment had been "very, very damaging to [his] work". The appointment of Motion met with criticism from some quarters. As he prepared to stand down from the job, Motion published an article in The Guardian which concluded, "To have had 10 years working as laureate has been remarkable. Sometimes it's been remarkably difficult, the laureate has to take a lot of flak, one way or another. More often it has been remarkably fulfilling. I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I'm giving it up – especially since I mean to continue working for poetry." Motion spent his last day as Poet Laureate holding a creative writing class at his alma mater, Radley College, before giving a poetry reading and thanking Peter Way, the man who taught him English at Radley, for making him who he was. Carol Ann Duffy succeeded him as Poet Laureate on 1 May 2009.

Andrew Motion nació en 1952. Estudió en el University College de Oxford y empezó su carrera enseñando inglés en la Universidad de Hull. También ha sido director de Poetry Review, director editorial de Chatto & Windus, y Poeta Laureado; asimismo, fue cofundador del Poetry Archive, y en 2009 se le concedió el título de Sir por su obra literaria. En la actualidad es profesor de escritura creativa en el Royal Holloway, de la Universidad de Londres. Es miembro de la Royal Society of Literature y vive en Londres. Con un elenco de nobles marineros y crueles piratas, y llena de historias de amor y de valentía, Regreso a la isla del tesoro es una trepidante continuación de La isla del tesoro, escrita con extraordinaria autenticidad y fuerza imaginativa por uno de los grandes escritores ingleses actuales.

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Owen said 'All a poet can do today, is warn'. And warn he does. 'Dulcet et Decorum est' is the game changer, from the traditional patriotic glorification of war to an exposure of the truth about the horrors, the fear and the unspeakable injuries endured by the ordinary soldier...on all sides. A representative selection of viewpoints are chosen by Motion, including those of the parents, the wives, the children of the soldiers.
You really would have thought we would have heeded the warning. No one was untouched by this conflict; and annually, we honour and respect all those who were affected. But we carried on fighting and one hundred years later, there are still many fearful conflicts with little hope of resolution or peace.

[An · Rating 4 out of 5]

In short about this book: Death inspires me to live.

Moved me to the core. And inspired my own poems as well, especially this one, short and simple with bottomless meaning:

"MARK ANDERSON"
by Wilfried Gibson:

On the low table by the bed
Where it was set aside last night,
Beyond the bandaged lifeless head,
It glitters in the morning-light :

And as the hours of watching pass,
I cannot sleep, I cannot think,
But only gaze upon the glass
Of water that he could not drink.

[Steph De Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

While also featuring several well-loved First World War poems, Andrew Motion aims to give prominence to lesser-known works in this collection, both by poets who experienced the war at first hand, and by those who came later, on whom the war left an indelible mark. Thus, while I welcomed the opportunity to revisit Hardy's "Channel Firing", Yeats' "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death", and a fittingly large selection of Wilfred Owen's oeuvre (he really is an astonishingly talented poet), it was a pleasure to be able to update my list of favourites with many new poems. Special praise is due, in particular, to Farjeon's "Easter Monday", Grenfell's "Into Battle", and Blunden's "Festubert, 1916", all of which are beautiful, evocative, and poignant. Yet the true revelation of this collection, at least for me, is the genius of Edward Thomas. While "Adlestrop" is one of my very favourite poems of all time (and is one of the few pieces of literature that can reliably, and repeatedly, move me to tears), I had not previously read any of his other work. I realise now that this was a grave error on my part: "Rain", "Roads", "The Cherry Trees", and "The sun used to shine...", all featured in this collection, are sublime. I can only infer from the significant number of Thomas' poems that Motion has chosen to feature in this collection that he is as much a fan as I am. I will definitely pick up a full collection of Thomas' poetry when next I visit a bookshop.
Thus, this is a well-edited anthology of poetry that has certainly earned its place in my permanent collection.

[Nicholas Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers anyone interested in The Great War a uniquely personal understanding of the war. History books explain the situation and events but reading the poetry of the people that went in, through or saw their husbands or sons off to the war offers a completely deeper, more human understanding of the experience.

The variety of poems, styles and voices is really what makes this an adventure of a read.

[Will Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to see a collection that doesn’t just focus on Sassoon and Owen

[Mycroft Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part History/Part Poetry

The fact that the entire book is so focused on such a specific area of poetic heritage can make it difficult to read. After all, war is hell.

However, as a reference book on First World War Poetry it has probably got me covered for life!!