I was familiar with the names of a few WW1 poets but had never REALLY read them. When I read in a Guardian news article that this book was banned at the Guantanamo prison library that was reason enough for me to finally read it. These poems will haunt and frustrate. Rather than being obviously and belligerently anti-war, these poems drag the reader through layers of empathy they may not know they had.....THEN they will get angry at the oligarchs who convince us to go to war.

Read it. Tell others to read it.

Loved this!

There are a lot of collections of Wilfred Owen's war poetry, and a lot of editions of this one, as I understand it has been expanded over time as more works and variations have been released. The one I read is a short collection of 23 poems published in 1920 - it's unclear whether this goodreads entry represents that collection or not.

The poems are short but meaty which, coupled with the intricate use of consonance and assonance, makes for some dense reading. One (well, I, anyway) can't simply breeze through the pages; I tended to read each one several times and then set it aside for a while. I'll have to seek out larger and fuller collections.

What a loss, though (Owen was killed about a week before WWI ended) - who knows what else he would have done.

Beautiful and poignant. Ordered as an afterthought when I bought a poppy. Lovely book.

Lest we forget.

"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori"