"Up the Line to Death: war poets 1914-18"

I've just finished working my way through a 1960s anthology of First World War poetry (presumably published for the 50th anniversary of the war, although I don't remember its actually saying so anywhere), which is very effective, and affecting. It's effective precisely because it isn't the standard modern selection (Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon) telling us what we're supposed to think about 'the War Poets' at a GCSE level of complexity; it's a compilation of what was actually written at the time, sent home on the back of letters, published in the newspapers, or found after death in uniform pockets. As the foreword puts it, it is largely a collection of lesser-known pieces, some of which are very good, most of which are good, and some of which are mediocre but poignant in their immediacy.( Read more... )

( Poem extracts )