The poetry designated ‘non-combatant’ comes from a hugely disparate group. This chapter explores its range and diversity, illustrating how even those designated ‘non-combatant’ necessarily had their lives circumscribed by war. The poetry contests the assumption that non-combatant meant a naive response to the war that saw it in terms of adventure and sanitised sacrifice. Although this perspective exists, anxiety and loss are dominant themes, and many non-combatants attempted to understand the combatant experience. Others draw on their immediate domestic environment to contest the war, or to consider their peripheral position on the home front. Poetry can articulate the bitterness of those who felt excluded from participation, or the political stance of conscientious objectors asserting the validity of their position. Others, such as nurses, use their poetry to bear witness to suffering, and to memorialise non-combatant women who died in the service of their country.