September
18
War Poetry
Below are links to a number of sites containing poems about war. This list is not at all exhaustive, but you should be able to find at least a few poems you like here…
These sites have been checked, so you should be able to access them all from school…
- Poem Hunter – war poems
- Love Poems – no idea why this site is called this, but there are plenty of war poems here…
- warpoetry.co.uk – this looks like a First World War poetry site but scroll down to a long list of poems from ALL wars…
- Black Cat Poems – poems about war page
- Australian Poetry Library – war poetry page
- Poets.org – the column on the left has links to war poems
- Famous Poets and Poems – poems from different wars
- Opening Lines – Poetry Past and Present – The 1914-18 War – this is a UK GCSE Yr11 revision site but has some excellent poems, all with summary and analysis.
- Move Him Into the Sun – this website is a project of the English department at Southfields Community College, Wandsworth, London UK. It is for “students and readers of World War One poetry and prose”.
Here is a list of poems you can use to construct your War Poetry Responses. Names in RED indicate Australian Poets. A quick search on the google should find them.
The First World War (1914-1918)
THE OUTBREAK OF WAR
- Peace – Rupert Brooke
- England To Her Sons – W.N. Hodgson
PREPARING FOR WAR
- On Receiving News of the War – Isaac Rosenberg
- Recruiting – E.A. Mackintosh
- The Send-Off – Wilfred Owen
THE WAR FRONT
- Breakfast – Wilfred Gibson
- The Letter – Wilfred Owen
- Louse Hunting – Isaac Rosenberg
- The General – Siegfried Sassoon
- Dulce et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen
- Suicide in the Trenches – Siegfried Sassoon
- The Deserter – Winifred Letts
- The Soldier – Rupert Brooke
- Six Young Men – Ted Hughes
- The Hero – Siegfried Sassoon
- The Rear Guard – Siegfried Sassoon
- Survivors – Siegfried Sassoon
THE HOME FRONT
- War Girls – Jessie Pope
- Munition Wages – Madeline Ida Bedford
- Many Sisters to Many Brothers – Rose Macaulay
THE AFTERMATH
- Does it Matter? – Siegfried Sassoon
- OBE – A.A. Milne
- The Great War – Vernon Scannell
The Second World War (1939-1945)
THE BLACKOUT, THE BLITZ & THE EVACUATION
- The Second World War – Elizabeth Jennings
- Autobiography – Adrian Henri
- Children in Wartime – Isobel Thrilling
- Evacuee – Isobel Thrilling
TRAINING
- Bayonet Training – Vernon Scannell
- Naming of Parts – Henry Reed
WARFARE
- LRDG – J.G. Meddemmen
- Lament of a Desert Rat – N.J. Trapnell
- Elegy for an 88 Gunner – Keith Douglas
- So Long – Hamish Henderson
- Convoy Episode – John Wedge
- Air Raid – Charles Robinson
AT HOME
- Air Raid Casualties – Patricia Ledward
- Lament – Francis Mayo
VICTIMS OF WAR
- Pigtail – Tadeusz Rozewicz
- The Rain – Zbigniew Herbert
- Casualty-Mental Ward – Vernon Scannell
- Post-War – Libby Houston
More Recent Wars
THE VIETNAM WAR
- Green Beret – Ho Thien
- What Were They Like? – Denise Levertov
- All Quiet – David Ignatow
- To Whom It May Concern – Adrian Mitchell
- The Casualty – Steve Mason