David X Novak
  • Home
  • About
  • Poetry
  • Plays
  • Prose
  • Books
  • News
  • Contact

Thinking on Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

11/3/2018

 
One hundred years ago tomorrow Wilfred Owen died, killed in action while crossing the Sambre-Oise Canal. A week later the armistice was signed ending WWI. He was twenty-five, only several months older than Keats whom he loved.

How did men so young write such brilliant and monumental poetry? Having outlived them several decades, I am still awed by the achievement, and grieved by the death, of either young man, though rejoicing in the posthumous legacy.

Wilfred Owen’s poems are generally considered the greatest of the war (and a large number of good poems were written by his generation); by many of any war—at least if you restrict yourself to poetry in English.
​

His “Parable of the Old Man and the Young” impressed me when I was very young—though it’s hard to guess where I first stumbled upon it. Like Keats, he left a handful of true masterpieces. Keats is known for his “one living year”; Owen for poems forged under the pressure cooker of battle.
​

​The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
​And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
​And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Comments are closed.
    Picture

    News?

    A new poem is always news to the poet.
    ​Or whatever.

    Archives

    April 2020
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed