Poetry
"This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.
Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion or power,
except War.
Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry.
The subject of it is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
Yet these elegies are not to this generation,
This is in no sense consolatory.
They may be to the next.
All the poet can do to-day is to warn.
That is why the true Poets must be truthful.
If I thought the letter of this book would last,
I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives Prussia,
—my ambition and those names will be content;
for they will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders."
Wilfred Owen
Unfinished Preface to Poems (1920)
This website’s aim is to provide a small selection of Owen’s poetry for introduction to his work. These poems are all from the posthumously published Poems by Wilfred Owen (1920), now available in the public domain. I highly recommended reading the full text, which is available (including the preface copied above and an introduction from Siegfried Sassoon) at Wikisource.
For more information on the history and meaning of Wilfred Owen’s poetry, I recommend the Wilfred Owen Association’s collection of poetry critiques. They provide great insight into the biographical context of each poem, in addition to literary criticism.