, a writer closely associated with Dearmer's family, recorded that Dearmer had disliked school but blossomed at university:
I have seen a boy who was consistently and persistently and indomitably unhappy during all the phases of his school life, turn into a creature radiant, walking on air, swimming in felicity, from the moment that he became an undergraduate. Bliss lasted for two years and then there was trouble about exams: but Geoffrey Dearmer – for he is my example – had got as much as anyone I ever knew of the real Oxford teaching, which is given by the atmosphere and surroundings and associations and companionships of the place.
Many of Dearmer's war poems dealt with the overall brutality of war and violence, to which he was a direct eyewitness. These poems enjoyed a brief popularity during and immediately after World War I but were later overshadowed by the starker works of other war poets such as Wilfrid Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Dearmer's poems were never infused with anger or despair and often revealed his unshakable Christian faith.
"Turkish Trench Dog" Night held me as I crawled and scrambled near The Turkish lines. Above, the mocking stars Silvered the curving parapet, and clear Cloud-latticed beams o'erflecked the land with bars. I, crouching, lay between Tense-listening armies peering through the night, Twin giants bound by tentaclesn unseen. Here in dim-shadowed light I saw him, as a sudden movement turned His eyes towards me, glowing eyes that burned A moment ere his snuffling muzzle found My trail; and then, as serpents mesmerise, He chained me with those unrelenting eyes, That muscle-sliding rhythm, knit and bound In spare-limbed symmetry, those perfect jaws And soft-approaching pitter-patter claws. Nearer and nearer like a wolf he crept - That moment had my swift revolver leapt - But terror seized me, terror born of shame Brought flooding revelation. For he came As one who offers comradeship deserved, An open ally of the human race, And, sniffing at my prostrate form unnerved, He licked my face!
Dearmer was also a poet of nature. A critic who knew him well rated his garden poetry as highly as his war poems, quoting these lines as an example:
The fields were loud with bees And drowsy with the wind-tossed meadow-sweet. From bowing trees Fell chatter, and above the garden wall Wide sunflowers beamed at spearing hollyhocks That dared the wind and scorned the clustered stocks And bore their laddered blooms high over all.
