SOURCE: "The Poet of War," in Nation and the Athenaeum, Vol. XXVIII, No. 21, February 19, 1921, pp. 705–07.

In the following excerpt, Murry lauds Owen's Poems and argues that the author was the greatest poet of World War I.

The name and the genius of Wilfred Owen were first revealed by the publication of his finest poem, "Strange Meeting," in the anthology Wheels a year ago. I still remember the incredible shock of that encounter, the sudden, profound stirring by the utterance of a true poet. Since that time other fragments of Owen's work have been made known, and if none so evidently bore the impress of poetic mastery as "Strange Meeting," they were a part of that achievement. We could be sure that when the promised volume of his poetry appeared it would be single, coherent, and unique.

And so it is. Here in thirty-three brief pages [Poems] is the...