The Poetry of Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen wrote most of these poems in little more than a year, between 1917 and his death in the final week of the First World War. Gathered and first published in 1920 through the efforts of Siegfried Sassoon, they remain the sharpest and most humane poetry to come out of that conflict. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est,’ ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth,’ and ‘Strange Meeting’ strip away every comforting illusion about glory, setting the reality of gas, mud, and slaughtered youth against the old lie that it is sweet to die for one’s country. Owen’s technical gifts, especially his use of half-rhyme, gave grief a new and lasting voice. This free edition collects his verse as a PDF and EPUB download.