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The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon | 
 enlarge | Category: EBooks
List Price: $1.99
Buy New: $1.59
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 77927
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
ASIN: B001588S1E
Publication Date: March 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"_Fall in! Now, get a move on!_" (Curse the rain.)We splash away along the straggling village, Out to the flat rich country green with June.... And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon Up in the Line. "_Perhaps the War'll be done By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!_" Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge. "_Lead on there by platoons._" The Line's a-glare With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle Of rifles and machine-guns. "_Fritz is there! Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?_" More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles. "There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles...
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| Customer Reviews:
Sassoon June 9, 2007
Like his poems, this book is short, to the point, and well worth reading. Highly recommended
The Base Details of War March 9, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I admit I am not one much for poetry, but ever since I read Martin Gilbert's THE FIRST WORLD WAR, which was replete with poetry written in the heat of battle, I've learned that verse is one of the most effective ways for a combat veteran to communicate the experiences of war. Siegfried Sassoon's aptly-titled WAR POEMS, compiled by Rupert Hart-Davis, is less a book of poetry than a guided tour through the muck, duckboards and barbed wire of No Man's Land.
Sassoon was a paradox as a human being. A sensitive and cultivated man and a world-famous poet when still in his twenties, he was also a ferocious fighter on the battlefield, dubbed "Mad Jack" by his men and a holder of the prestigious Military Cross. Disenchanted by the wastage and slaughter he had experienced, in 1917 he wrote a denunciation of the war and was promptly shut up in an asylum in Craiglockhart, Britain, where he composed many of the poems that appear in this book. Later he returned to the front and was shot in the head, but survived and enjoyed a prolific and diverse writing career, somewhat annoyed (as Hart-Davis tells us) that he had gone down in history as a "war poet." Reading this book, however, it is easy to see why.
Hart-Davis has arranged the 111 poems in chronological order, so that the reader can follow Sassoon's emotional journey from a naive young subaltern filled with a quasi-religious sense of mission (in 1915) to an embittered, half-delirious veteran driven to the edge of his sanity by relentless horror. And truly his poems run the range of emotions, from the mundanities of trench life ("A Working Party"; "In An Underground Dressing Station") to the moments before the ball went up ("Before the Batlle") to fury of combat itself ("Counter Attack") and its aftermath ("Died of Wounds"). Every aspect of the war is discussed, from war-fever to cowardice, from the bungling and incompetence of generals to the bluster of civilians back in England. Sometimes he's filled with rage and grief; other times with admiration and pathos (as with "Remorse", his paen to German prisoners run through with bayonets after an attack). But always there's the keen intelligence, the gift for words, the startling ability to convey image in just a few syllables, that mark the true genius-writer. See "The General:"
"Good morning, good morning" the general said
When we met him last week on our way to the line
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine
"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both with his plan of attack.
Of course quoting from the best of the WAR POEMS would fill 30 pages, so I'll leave you with the words of "Base Details."
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
and speed young heroes up the line to death.
You'd see my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honor, "Poor young chap."
I'd say -- "I used to know his father well;
Yes, we lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die -- in bed.
THE COST OF QUALITY March 25, 2006
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
There's no question that Siegfried Sassoons's is the finest of the World War I poetry. How the poems are presented to the reader is A PROBLEM. Publishers employ "lick and a polish" guys who excell at slight touch-ups to a graphic design that enables the corporation to double the book price. THIS BOOK."THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON",COSTS TOO MUCH. If Sassoons poems were the value for the money, hooray. But we're not paying the money to Sassoon. Sassoon has been dead for half a century. Sassoon does not, therefore, benefit from the high cost of the publication. Poems: GREAT. book: OVER-PRICED.
Siegfried Sassoon's War Poems June 5, 2000
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
I do not read much poetry, but for various reasons I wanted to read some of the British WWI poets because I knew they didn't mince words about the horror of infantry combat. Sassoon does not disappoint. His poems drip with bite, sarcasm, and some bitterness, but at the same time they are elegantly rhymed and the images are powerful. War is nasty business, not glorious, and it is also stupid. WWI was the end of innocence 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 sample will help.Stand-to: Good Friday Morning I'd been on duty from two till four. I went and stared at the dug-out door. Down in the frowst I heard them snore. "Stand to!" Somebody grunted and swore. Dawn was misty; the skies were still' Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; They seemed happy; but I felt ill. Deep in water I splashed my way Up the trench to our bogged front line. Rain had fallen the whole damned night. O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, And I'll believe in Your bread and wine, And get my bloody old sins washed white! This collection includes the notes that Sassoon added as commentary on some of his poems. On the above poem Sassoon notes: "I haven't shown this to any clergyman. But soldiers say they feel like that sometimes." This is poetry that grabs you and moves you, but it is a particular genre, not for everyone's taste. If one purpose of poetry is to allow us to see through some of life's darker experiences, then this collection is well worth your reading and reflection.
Ouch! June 4, 2000
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
Poetry is one of my literary loves: but in this slim volume it is put to the task of exposing the soul of a young man who fights his nation's war because his honor demands that he do so while he simultaneously deplores and decries both the necessity of doing so and the method forced on him of carrying out his honorable charge. A good friend once asked me what to read to properly understand the history of World War I and while I recommended several critical histories (Churchill's, Keegan's and B.H. Liddell-Hart) I also emphasized the necessity of reading All Quiet on the Western Front, Goodbye to All That, and the combined war poetry of Graves, Owen and, of necessity, Sassoon. The poetry of WWI brings to life the soul of the experience in a way no history, no matter how talented the historian, can do. It translates you into Sassoon's body and mind as he experiences the horror and shock of absolute and directionless (to his view-point, not necessarily in reality) war. These poems bring the sounds and smells of violent death and horrendous suffering - massive destruction and heroic effort - into your ears and nostrils. Indispensible. Kelly Whiting
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