The poem, "War Thoughts at Home," has particular resonance now, Stilling said. It will be published, for the first time, it is believed, in the Virginia Quarterly Review available Monday.

When Ada Limón was asked to write a poem that would be blasted into space, she was up for the challenge. “Poetry is the language of mystery and the unknown,” she said.

The Unknown Warrior was given a state funeral on November 11, 1920 and interred in the abbey where he rests to this day. Tens of thousands of people filed past the coffin; ...