First World War Poems - Tapa dura

The First World War produced some of the most haunting and memorable poetry of our age. In this compelling anthology, the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion guides us through both the horror and the pity of that conflict, from the trenches of the Western Front to reflections from our own age. With a selection of our best-known war poets, this collection also returns lesser known pieces to the light and extends the selection right through to the present day. The text serves to remind us how poetry of that time has, more than any other art from, come to stand testament to the grief and outrage occasioned by World War I.

Andrew Motion was born in 1952. He read English at University College, Oxford and subsequently spent two years writing about the poetry of Edward Thomas for an M. Lit. From 1976 to 1980 he taught English at the University of Hull; from 1980 to 1982 he edited the Poetry Review, and from 1982 to 1989 he was Editorial Director and Poetry Editor at Chatto & Windus. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He is a member of the Arts Council of England and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.Andrew Motion is the author of eight books of poems, of four biographies, including the authorized life of Philip Larkin, and of critical studies of Larkin and Edward Thomas. He has been the recipient of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Dylan Thomas Award and the Whitbread Prize for Biography.Andrew Motion was appointed Poet Laureate in May 1999. He lives in London with his wife and their three child