born March 18, 1893, Oswetry, Shropshire, Eng.
died Nov. 4, 1918, France
British poet.
Owen was already writing verse before he enlisted in the army in 1915, but the experience of trench warfare brought him to rapid maturity; the poignant poems he wrote after January 1917 are full of anger at the cruelty and waste of war and pity for its victims. A week before the armistice, he died in action at age 25. His single volume of poems, published posthumously, is noted for its experiments in assonance. Benjamin Britten 's celebrated War Requiem (1962) is a setting of Owen's poems.