When poets are involved in war, they take

Their stances separately,  not set as corps

Like soldiers in platoons.  To undertake

Their poet duty, each perceives the war

From different angles.  Some, among the first,

Are those who have no knowledge, Jessie Pope

And Rupert Brooke.  Though different they are worst.

Their ignorance compels these ones to grope

About in love of nation, seeking how

To blind themselves and others with soft rhymes.

Then come the poets who with facts avow

The truth of trenches, tanks and other crimes.

  Sassoons and Wilfred Owenses forthwith

    Dispense with crap and gloried warrior myth.

~ Phillip Whidden