Exile and Other Poems

First published in 1923, Exile and Other Poems is an important, poignant collection from one of the foremost Imagist war poets. Penned after witnessing the horrors of the frontline during the First World War, Aldington’s brutal, honest verse lays bare unimaginable experiences.

The first part of the collection, ‘Exile’, explores the poet’s survivor’s guilt, post-traumatic stress and sense of alienation. The collection continues with a ‘Songs for Puritans’ and ‘Songs for Sensualists’, pastiches of seventeenth and eighteenth-century love poetry, and a series of more personal poems exploring the natural world, from which Aldington drew reassurance.

Enriched with a fascinating introduction and explanatory notes by leading Aldington scholars Elizabeth Vandiver and Vivien Whelpton, this centenary edition seeks to place Exile firmly back on the map of war poetry, from which it has been missing for too long.

Author Biography

Richard Aldington (1892–1962) was an English writer and war poet associated with the Imagist movement, and his fifty-year writing career covered poetry, fiction, literary criticism and biography. Aldington joined up in 1916 and was sent to the front. Traumatised by his experiences, he sought an outlet in verse. Exile and Other Poems, first published in 1923, was his first substantial attempt to process the trauma of his experience in poetry, and stands as a monument in war poetry. Elizabeth Vandiver edited Richard Aldington’s Exile and Other Poems with Viven Whelpton. Viven Whelpton edited Richard Aldington’s Exile and Other Poems with Elizabeth Vandiver.