The Selected Poems of Harriet Monroe

Unearthing the overlooked poet behind Poetry magazine

Harriet Monroe, whose work as the visionary founding editor of Poetry magazine profoundly shaped the development of American poetry in the 20th century, was a vital and prolific poet in her own right. This volume showcases the sweeping breadth of Monroe's poetic talents.

Monroe lived through a period of immense change and global conflict, from the American Civil War, through World War I and the Great Depression, up to the first stirrings of the second Great War. Through her poetry, Monroe confronted major issues, critiquing war, the impact of industrialization on the arts, and inequality, while championing women's rights and environmental conservation—issues that remain pressingly relevant today. Monroe's three collections of poetry, as well as her own "selected poems" volume, have all long been out of print. This book, then, represents the first appearance of many of these poems in more than 100 years. This selection includes meditations on modern technology and globalization in the early 20th century, love lyrics, hymns to the deserts of the American West, feminist reflections on gender and motherhood, and more. The volume also includes a number of poems that have never before been published, drawing on manuscripts found in Monroe's papers at the University of Chicago Library.

Students at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, under the guidance of Kevin McMullen, project manager of the Walt Whitman Archive, selected these poems to capture the range and breadth of Monroe's styles and poetic interest. The poems, along with an extensive critical introduction and explanatory notes, establish Monroe's place as an important and overlooked Modernist poet from the Midwest.