I remember reading this as part of GCSE English, unfortunately the school system in the UK makes poetry dry and uninspiring. In terms of anti-war poems I prefer "The Box" by Kendrew Lascelles.

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s3krit an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Reading and reciting this poem and the works of Benjamin Zephaniah (particularly ‘dis poetry’) in gcse English convinced me that it wasn’t ‘lame’ and poetry can be inspiring

	▲	ccppurcell an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Same here! This poem and Anthem for Doomed Youth lodged deep in my memory. We all had to perform a poem from one of those GCSE collections and I chose Anthem for Doomed Youth. The silence in the classroom afterwards... We were lucky with English teachers though.

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richrichardsson 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Instantly took me back 35 years.

I wonder if you can age a person based on them knowing this and whatever the Siegfried Sassoon poem that was covered in order to demonstrate onomatopoeia? I suppose it would depend how long it was (or indeed if it still is) part of the curriculum.

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miningape 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same, although I actually remember enjoying this particular poem in class.

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hkt 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I did it too and found it to be the same. It was years until I realised we had actually been doing rather good stuff.