Second World War Poetry

First World War Poetry is well remembered and read the names are still familiar Wilfrid Owen Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves. -This can be contrasted with the WW2 - and yet poetry in English in WW2 prefigures much of the poetic development since 1945. We can think of Sidney Keyes, Keith Douglas, Henry Reed as well as others who were established as poets before the War - Louis MacNeice, Norman Cameron. More cogently the war is more democratic - not confined to the public school educated - and in a sense more universal. John Lucas's account brings into focus the achievement and mood of these poets.

Second World War Poetry in English by John Lucas