Facts about the war poets and their poetry, as well as other links between poetry and war

1. The link between poppies and war remembrance dates from the Napoleonic wars, when a writer noted that they flourished over soldiers’ graves. As The History Press website notes: ‘there are several anonymous documents written during the Napoleonic wars which noted that following battle, poppies became abundant on battlefields where soldiers had fallen. These same sources drew the first documented comparison between the blood-red colour of the poppies and the blood spilt during conflict.’ The association would be popularised during the First World War, especially by John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields‘ in 1915.