FOREWORD In looking over the anthologies of poetry on the shelves of any well-equipped public library, one thinks of the rats that followed the Pied Piper. There are war poems, love poems, sad poems, funny poems, old poems, new poems, child poems, college poems, poems of the city, poems of the country-anthologies by tens and dozens. In the latest additions to these we take particular pride, for they represent the verse of our own age. Modern poetry is worth being proud of for at least two reasons. First, it appeals to many different types of people. Whether one is looking for poems that are heroic, fanciful, humorous, or thoughtful-poems on any subject from the steel industry to the immortality of the soul-poems of the loftiest imagination or the tenderest human interest-he will find his desires gratified. In no other period of English literature has poetry been so varied, so like an elaborate prism which flashes new beauty to each eye. For never before has it refracted the light of so many and such different personalities. It has been said that every one can write at least one good poem; and nowadays he can usually get it published. The name of our young poets is Legion. Moreover, many of our poets, even the best-known ones, have wide interests besides their poetry. They may be newpaper men, lawyers, college professors, army officers, social workers. The great emotional stimulus of the war drove vigorous, practical men and women of all ages and occupations to the discovery that poetry might be a solace and joy not only to the student or visionary, but to the average person. The technique of modern poetry is no less free, novel and |