Search - :: COLLECTION: POETS OF THE GREAT WAR

Moving poetry from a time of loss.

Eric Stott | Albany, NY USA | 12/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If only one worthwile thing came from the First World War (1914-1918) it may have been some of the finest poetry in the english language. Several poets represented here (Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen and others) lost their lives while ironicaly producing their finest works. This fine collection, splendidly arranged and read, gave me in turn feelings of hope, outrage, regret, humor, and resignation. The final work, Laurence Binyon's "For The Fallen" eulogizes the dead and their memory. Although written for the English dead, it serves well as a memorial for all war dead. Set against Elgar's "Nimrod" music, it is moving and emotional."

Vertical separation

M. B. Milhuisen | Colombo,Sri Lanka | 05/30/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The CDis fantastic, in that it allows for listening to the poems at leisure. One is able to absorb the content of what is read and follow every nuance of meaning- travel back into time as it were. Sassoon and Owen portray the vertical separation that World War One created: between the nation at home and the nation at war, each isolated one from the other. The poems speak of the unspeakable cruelty and hate that prevailed and exposes the hypocrisy of the politicians of the day and age. The content of the poems transcend the time they were written, into this our 21st century in which we find (easily) the similar chaos, insanity and the similar divide between nations at war and nations at home, each oblivious to the others reality or situation, conditioned into a reality that is in every way identical to the conditions that prevailed in the Great War.As a student of War Poetry I have found this work on CD an invaluable insight into the socio-political spectrum of the time."