The Winter of the World

Book excerpt: This new anthology brings together 270 poems and is the most complete and authoritative ever compiled. Arranged by year rather than by poet, it is the first to reveal how poetry developed between 1914 and 1918, and afterwards from 1919 - 1930. The poetry that came out of the First World War exposed, for the first time in history, the real horror of war. The result is an extraordinary record of passionate feelings and appalling experiences, written by men and women from widely different backgrounds, of unique and enduring importance. All the major poets are generously represented, Owen, Brooke, Sassoon, Blunden, Gurney, Graves and Rosenberg, but here too are many unfamiliar yet remarkable poems from the less familiar, Joseph Leftwich, F S Flint, 'Touchstone'; female poets: Edith Sitwell; Vera Brittain, Eleanor Farjeon; and writers not always associated with WWI poetry, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Ezra Pound. Accompanying notes to the poems, historical events and the poets give precise, relevant information and suggest links to other poems, so the book as a whole forms a fascinating, moving narrative. Praise for Poetry of the Great War: An Anthology: 'This splendid anthology...immaculately crafted...wide and authorative...[is] recommended unhesitatingly to both a popular and academic readership. Choice, USA Praise for Wilfred Owen: A New Biography: 'Rich, compelling, formidably researched.' John Carey, Sunday Times