Reader’s Guide to World War I Poetry

There is good news concerning the readings for this part of the course: they’re really short. One may knock all of the poetry for this part out in one sitting, if desired. However, that is not advised. The meaning and intent for each poem is fairly straight forward and the language used is the closest it will come to that of modern times, however this is not cause to celebrate. The subject matter of the poetry is strong, o the point of exhaustion.

As the title suggests, this poetry is about WWI and it is coming straight form the horse’s mouth. These are the writings of soldiers and what they experienced during the war. As an emotional exercise, I would suggest that you open yourself to these poems and let the desired effect of the authors take its toll. They want to put you in their place and let you see things from their perspectives on an issue that is quite close to us in terms of proximity. Take full advantage of that and spend some time with the poetry.