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Published: 2015-07-13

Total Pages: 24

ISBN-13: 9781331298205

Excerpt from A List of Eighty Seven Poets: Representing American Verse From 1900 to 1919 In these stirring and tremendous times the American public library has many opportunities for service. Among these one of the highest is that of introducing to their fellowmen those artists who through the printed word interpret human life, and hold aloft the torch of the ideal. To be chosen, therefore, as the official agency for advertising the wares of such American poets as have earned the approval of the Poetry Society of America is both an honor and a peculiarly happy opportunity for continuing our work as promoters of good reading. What the Syracuse Reprint Is Toward the close of 1913 the Poetry Society of America, through a committee selected from its officers and members, made a list of such books of American contemporary poetry as could in their opinion be recommended for purchase by libraries both public and private and for reading and study by all who desired to keep in touch with poetic movements in this country. The list of that year was printed in the columns of the Library Journal for February, 1914. This first of our Library Lists was extended to cover more or less perfectly the years from 1900 to 1913. Librarians were at that time noting the awakened interest in our own native poetry, and there was a call for the publication of like Lists in the years that followed. The Library Journal continuing its hospitality, the Lists hereafter were made every December and were given to the public in the February following. After a while the Syracuse Public Library, through the interest of its chief librarian, Paul M. Paine, reprinted those Lists in its Bulletin and through these reprints the Lists have reached a still wider usefulness. The List that follows here is a restated and somewhat condensed arrangement of all these Lists, thus including volumes from 1900 to 1919. It has been carefully arranged, the titles and publishers are named, a note of appreciation and a short quotation are given with each author. In this form it is hoped that the Syracuse Reprint will meet a wide need among people who feel the necessity to know the poetry of today and among those who do not but would if they realized how much more there is of it and how vital a thing it is at the present moment. It should be understood by all users of this List that the Committee distinctly disclaim definitive judgments upon the ultimate value of the books chosen. They simply present to poetry lovers and to all who believe expression in poetry (as well as in the other arts) to be essential to our national development, a guide to present-day trends in poetry - a means of finding out what is happening in our own poetic realm. One would say that the people who wish to be fairly well read in our national literature should know at least these among the many hundreds of volumes of native poetry that might be annually urged upon them. The effort has been made to include books that show finished artistry, fresh impulses, some real contribution of new born thought, some fresh inspiration illuminating old thought, or some bold and noble dash that comes from the depths of a soul intensely native and innately chaste. To be sure omissions of valued books sometimes occur. Not all books of poetry are published by well-known publishers. Out-of-the-way printers often get hold of a gem of purest ray serene. Hence the Committee are glad to receive suggestions from any source as to privately-printed or other books of verse that might otherwise escape their attention. Address the Chairman of the Committee, Mrs. Martha Foote Crow, 16 Morningside Avenue, New York City. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com