First World War Poems from the Front

From the worst horrors of modern trench warfare a small handful of soldiers and nurses created a body of poetry that is so vivid and intense that one hundred years later it has engraved itself on our national consciousness. Most anthologies of First World War poetry include quite uneven poems by many different poets, seeking to represent the wide range of war poetry that was written during the conflict. It can be hard to find your way through single poems by so many different voices. Instead, this anthology will be distinctive in focusing only on the most iconic figures of the war to explore their work in more depth. They include Rupert Brooke, Charles Hamilton Sorley, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and Edward Thomas will be particularly well represented, but so will three poets whose reputation is still growing: Ivor Gurney, Edmund Blunden and David Jones. It will also include powerful poems by three nurses who served in France: Vera Brittain, Mary Borden and May Cannan. The poems are accompanied by a brief and accessible introduction, which sets the context for a reader new to the poems, as well as short biographical profiles of the poets.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Rupert Brooke The Dead The Soldier I strayed about the deck Charles Sorley All the hills and vales along To Germany Two Sonnets When you see millions of the mouthless dead Robert Graves A Dead Boche Two Fusiliers The Legion November 11th The Last Day of Leave (1916) The Haunted House Sergeant-Major Money The Cuirassiers of the Frontier Recalling War The Oldest Soldier Siegfried Sassoon 'They' The Hero Counter-Attack The Rear-Guard Base Details The General Does it Matter? Survivors I Stood with the Dead Everyone Sang Mary Borden The Song of the Mud No, no! There is some sinister mistake See how the withered leaves Come to me quickly and take me away Unidentified Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy His Mate To Stretcher-Bearers Old England Demobilised Edward Thomas In Memoriam (Easter, 1915) This is no case of petty right or wrong Rain 'Home' The Cherry Trees The sun used to shine No one cares less than I As the team's head-brass The Trumpet Lights Out David Jones excerpts from In Parenthesis Isaac Rosenberg On Receiving News of the War: Cape Town Marching - as seen from the left file The Troop Ship In the Trenches Break of Day in the Trenches August 1914 Louse Hunting Returning, we hear the larks Dead Man's Dump Vera Brittain The German Ward To My Ward-Sister on Night Duty Epitaph on My Days in Hospital The Lament of the Demobilised The Superfluous Woman Wilfred Owen Anthem for Doomed Youth 1914 Apologia pro Poemate Meo Dulce et Decorum Est Strange Meeting Futility Mental Cases The Send-Off The Parable of the Old Man and the Young Exposure The Sentry Smile, Smile, Smile Laurence Binyon For the Fallen Fetching the Wounded excerpt from The Arras Road excerpt from Wingless Victory There is Still Splendour August Afternoon Edmund Blunden Festubert, 1916 Rural Economy (1917) The Zonnebeke Road Concert Party: Busseboom Report on Experience 'Can You Remember?' May Cannan Rouen Lamplight Paris, November 11, 1918 Paris Leave Ivor Gurney Song ('Severn Meadows') To His Love De Profundis La Gorgue Strange Hells First Time In Behind the Line The Bohemians The Silent One The Mangel-Bury It is Near Toussaints War Books Bibliography and text sources Acknowledgements

About the Author :
Professor Paul O'Prey is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Roehampton in London, where he is also Professor of Modern Literature. He is a former president of the War Poets Association, a member of the council of the IWM Friends, and author of a number of books including 'Robert Graves' Selected Poems' (Penguin, 1986), completed after a long period working with the poet.