The poetry of World War I was an unusual literary and cultural phenomenon in which it emerged as a genre with self-awareness and autonomy. They were the famous War Poets, who, as will be seen from the biographical details, were connected to each other in one way or another.

War has always been a theme of poetic creation (Homer's Iliad, for example, inaugurates it in the West), but what makes the poetry of World War I stand out is the following: Firstly, the unprecedented volume of poems written during that period - only from England and Ireland, which interest us here, there were more than 2000 war poets; and secondly, their self-awareness that they were war poets. The poetry of World War I cannot be limited only to trench poetry, although this remains the most important and powerful part of it.

The poetry of World War I includes soldiers and non-soldiers, men and women, romantics and modernists; it is, in other words, a very wide range through which each one expressed their experiences from their own perspective.

Today, no serious anthologist can ignore the poetry of those who were not in the trenches, of civilians or women. It was not military history or imagination, nor cinema, but poetry that shaped the ground of the collective memory of World War I - it created its mythology. Today, exactly a century later, this poetry still haunts the British nation and its people.

One of the unique characteristics of World War I poetry is its high emotional intensity. It is often considered as the almost exact recording of the experience of the trenches and not just a poetic language with beautiful words, lyricism, and whispers. It is a poetry that screams, cries, shudders, and hurts; but also mocks and indulges in sentimentality. It is one of those archetypal moments where poetic form must bear witness to the historical trauma, and that is precisely the greatness of this poetry.

CHERRIES
The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.
Edward Thomas

AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

William Butler Yeats

BASIC DETAILS
If I were wild and raw and had eaten my bread,
I would be with the great Generals there at the Base;
to chase the poor heroes to their first death
line.
I would have a swollen face and nerves in my good seats;
I would eat and drink in nice first-class hotels
reading the list of dead soldiers... "Poor child,
poor thing" I would say, "I knew his father;
yes, indeed we had heavy losses in the last battle"...
And when the war would end and the young ones would be dead,
I would crawl home safe, to die myself -
in bed.
Siegfried Sassoon