Wilfred Owen is one of my favorite poets (and not just favorite "War Poet"), and I consider him great with a capital G (though, as we have discussed, "greatness" ends up not being a very useful category--so I'll drop it--a favorite poet, let us say). His output is slim, of course, since he died on the front during WW1 at the age, I think, of 26. His own favorite poet was Keats, who also died at 26 (?), so there is a poignant irony there. Both poets also wrote most of their best work in a short spurt of amazing productivity. A lot is said, in both cases, of what they might have accomplished had they lived longer. More, certainly. But I do think that in both cases the amazing productivity and intensity was in part due to a presentiment that they would die young (Keats of consumption, and Owen could make a pretty good guess, knowing the odds at the front). But that's just my own theory.
He is particularly known for employing a variety of slant rime that some call "pararhyme." That is where the consonants align on both sides of a syllable, but the vowel shifts. Such as: "time/tomb" "rhyme/room" "plight/plate", etc. It has been noticed that he often goes from a higher to a lower vowel sound in this. Sometimes the result is of a literal transformation-- green becoming groan, etc. Owen was Welsh, and there is perhaps some connection (though I don't think it has ever been demonstrated that he was all that familiar with Welsh poetry) with Welsh poetry, which traditionally employs alliteration and consonantal rhymes. (I'm no expert on this, though.)
Actually, however, the poem I decided to post employs full rime. What I like about this one is how he has inverted an old trope--Ovid says, for instance, that every lover is a soldier. And the idea of love being compared to war is an ancient one. But this does the opposite, and (shockingly) describes soldiers and war in the traditional cloying language and cliched tropes of love. I also like the contrast of dictions here--between the high poetic (including inversions), to the clinical, crude and latinate. The long lines--2,5 of each stanza--should be indented. (I was given excellent advice on this, but haven't quite mastered the trick yet.)
Greater Love
Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so soft,--
Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,--
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear,
Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
Heart, you were never hot
Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
Weep, you may weep, for you may thouch them not.
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Threaded Mode
