Author Description

"The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon" is a collection of British war poems that doesn't mince words about the horror of infantry combat. Sassoon's poems drip with bite, sarcasm, and some bitterness, but at the same time they are elegantly rhymed and the images are powerful. The World Wars marked the end of innocence for many, and the poets who wrote of their war experiences brought home the irony of that innocence in the face of the devastation that was wrought. A note Sassoon wrote on one of his poems is particularly enlightening: "I haven't shown this to any clergyman. But soldiers say they feel like that sometimes." The writing in "The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon" is poetry that grabs and moves the reader, letting them see some of life's darker experiences. For those who wish to understand what war really was, as well as be motivated to avoid it when at all possible, this collection is well worth reading.