Poems

MP3 Audio CD. Wilfred Owen was the leading poet of WWI, enlisting in 1915 and fighting for two years before being subdued by illness and forced to take time to recover at Craiglockart War Hospital. This is where Owen found himself face to face with illustrious poet Siegfried Sassoon, who helped him through his first steps on his career as a poet.

Even though Owen died in 1918, in the three years prior to his death, he managed to paint a more vivid and shockingly detailed picture of the war through his outstanding poetry than any other poet was capable to do. His poems show Sassoon's influence quite directly, and largely represent the horrors of the new war and the gas warfare which was never previously used, and left a deep scar on the psyche of even the toughest military officers and soldiers.

Owen also used his poetry to show the impact that his war experience had on his religious beliefs. Focusing mainly on realism and writing from experience ? approaches borrowed from Sassoon once more ? and later introducing elements of Freudian psychoanalysis that significantly changed his poetry during 1917, Owen became widely renowned for poems such as "Anthem for Doomed Youth," ?The Parable of the Old Men and the Young? and ?Futility.?

These poems, and many others among his most famous works, show that, even though Owen will always be remembered as a war poet, he is in fact far more than that. His almost magical command of words showed a remarkable talent for original poetry that would likely have continued to be refined, had his death not cut short the beautiful efforts that Owen set his heart to, in order to immortalize his unique experience in the war, through the means of his poetic skills.

Wilfred Owen's collected poems are a testament to the talent and remarkable depth of this young man's personality, sending a powerful message to all those who remain oblivious to the grim possibilities of war, even during our times.