Our Editor writes:
In the teachers' notes in "KBH The First World War", S. L. Case wrote this:

"In this same connection it is also recommended that pupils should be given the opportunity of reading some of the First World War poets. In the author's experience even the most unliterary classes can be moved by the words of Wilfred Owen and others, provided that the poems are read in the context of a discussion about life in the trenches. One very interesting exercise is to take one of the more obviously patriotic poems from Rupert Brooke and compare his enthusiasm for the war with the cynicism expressed in the poetry written later by Sassoon, Owen, and others who lived long enough to become disenchanted."
(S. L. Case: The First World War: To the Teacher, page 48.)

The three mentioned are the most famous of the Great War Poets today. Rupert Brooke was a well established poet and literary figure before the war. In 1914, he joined the RNVR and took part in the Antwerp expedition. His five War Sonnets published in1915 were received with such great enthusiasm that he became the nation's poet of war. Although his war poems remained popular after his death, he is, perhaps, better known today for his lighter poetry. He died of blood poisoning on the way to the Dardanelles in 1915.

Wilfred Owen was a very different war poet. Having survived the Somme he was encouraged in his writing by Sassoon. He returned to France in 1918, won the MC and was killed at the Sombre Canal a week before the Armistice. His great creative burst of work "from the trenches" came between the summer of 1917 and the autumn of 1918. Yet only five of his poems were published in his lifetime. His fame, for bleak realism and compassion, was to be posthumous.

Siegfried Sassoon is now famous for his bleak realism and dislike of war-mongering and political cant. His war poetry published in 1917 and 1918 was not much appreciated at the time though he was later greatly successful in prose and poetry He began to see himself as a religious poet in the tradition of Herbert and Vaughan, and was converted to Catholicism in 1957. He died in 1967.

Who was popular at the time?
One of the most popular poets on the 1914-18 period was John Oxenham (1852-1941) who sold over a million volumes with his Christian idealism and confidence in heaven combined with a sincere support for the war itself. Rupert Brooke was the most revered combatant poet at the time.

Were there women war poets?
There are many examples of poetry written by women both in response to the war, and from direct experience. Women made weapons, took over traditional male occupations at home and nursed the wounded in Britain and at the front. So many lost brothers, sons, husbands or lovers in the trenches. The range of this poetry is wide and the poetic response deeply significant. Some of the poetry is experimental and advanced in form. Some of the women poets are well known; Vera Brittain, Rose Macauley, Edith Sitwell and Edith Nesbit, but others less famous merit study.

Isaac Rosenberg an urban Jewish poet:
Many of our famous war poets were from educated middle class backgrounds but Rosenberg is a very interesting exception, though his father was scholarly. Isaac had published poetry before he defied his family, joining the army and becoming a private in the trenches in 1916. He greatly disliked what he called Brooke's "begloried sonnets". Rich realistic descriptions characterise his work and many believe he could have matured into a poet of the stature of Pound and Eliot had he not lost his life in action in 1918.

Many Poets and Many Lost
Not all of the war poets rank among the well known names. Yet what a debt we owe them for labouring at their art in the most dreadful and tragic circumstances of a war which claimed so many lives. On the very first day of the battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916, a number of our poets died; Henry Field, William Noel Hodgson, Alfred Ratcliffe, Alexander Robertson, Gilbert Waterhouse, Bernard White and John William Streets. We can be thankful that we can read their words today and perhaps be the better for doing so.