WWI Poems

I think WWI poems are very interesting. They somehow capture the difficulties between the taditional and the new more easily than poems from other time periods. After all, everything was changing then. Modernization was happening. Industrialization. Even war itself was completely different than it had ever been before. And for the most part, the changes that were happening were bad. I mean, they turned beautiful countrysides into smoggy, gray, poverty-stricken cities. Everyone was struggling to change their views and their lifestyles to keep up. And then WWI comes along. It's horrific and strange in so many ways, it's almost incomprehensible. It's bigger than any war that's come before it. And at the same time, people can hear more about it because of technology, so it feels closer to home. Everything was in turmoil.
I really like the poems from this time because they capture that. They still, often, use the 'rules' of old romantic poetry - using certain rhyme schemes or meters, etc. - but they are drifting away from the old in subject matter (and, eventually, in form). They talk not about love and beauty but about the horrors of war and the changing world around them. They capture the feeling of being lost in a world that's moving ahead quicker than people can think. I sometimes feel rushed and lost in a similar way, and I can imagine what it must have been like during that time. So I really appreciate the blend of old and new and the feeling that gives WWI witness poems.