First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Poetic Differences

Despite their shared experiences, Graves and Sassoon did not always agree about either poetry or the war. In 1917 and 1918, Graves was working on a collection of poems entitled 'The Patchwork Flag'. Sassoon did not entirely approve of the project, and the volume was never published. Consider the following letter and what it reveals about poetic and political differences between the two poets during the war.