War Poetry

Poetry Assignment

War Poetry

A popular theme for poets in the last century was war. Many famous poems were written about the two world wars, as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars.

For my report I have chosen six poems, three by Wilfred Owen and three by Australian poets. ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, ‘The Send Off’ and ‘Insensibility (1)’ were written by Owen during the first world war to express his anti-war attitude. ‘Beach Burial’ by Kenneth Slessor, ‘Homecoming’ by Bruce Dawe and ‘Letter XV’ by Bruce Beaver are famous Australian poems about war.

The poems have many similarities, especially in content, but also have their differences.

The subject matter of the poems is obviously generally the same. Most are about soldiers dying/dead because of a war. ‘Beach Burial’ is specifically about the WW2 battle at El Alamein, and ‘Homecoming’ is concerned with the effect of the Vietnam War, but the rest are about war in general. The purpose of the poems is to convey the poets’ own beliefs against war, for example Wilfred Owen was an avid