Literary Birthday – 18 March – Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen was born 18 March 1893, and died 4 November 1918.

Three Quotes on Poetry

1. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the truest poets must be truthful.
2. I find purer philosophy in a Poem than in a Conclusion of Geometry, a chemical analysis, or a physical law.
3. I was a boy when I first realised that the fullest life liveable was a Poet’s.

Wilfred Owen was an English poet and soldier. He is considered to be the leading poet of the First World War and his works are available in The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen. His realistic poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare was in stark contrast to public perception and the patriotic tone of earlier war poets like Rupert Brooke. He was shot and killed in France on 4 November 1918. The news of his death reached his parents as Armistice bells rang on 11 November 1918.