Strange Meeting

Strange Meeting

War poem by Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen’s poem portrays two speakers meeting in “some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped / Through granites which titanic wars had groined” (2-3). This granite tunnel is the aftermath of titanic wars, an image which reflects afterlife as the product of cataclysmic destruction. As a metaphor, this granite tunnel may not seem visceral at first, but the “strange meeting” occurs twice, once on the battlefield, as the first speaker bayonets the other, and twice after death, where the two soldiers recognize each other.

Wilfred Owen

1893-1918

The British Library / The Wilfred Owen Literary Estate