Excerpt from Modern American Poetry: An IntroductionMany, though not all of the poets that have succeeded Whitman have found a fresh, living and vigorous poetry in a world of honest and sometimes harsh reality. They respond to the spirit of their times. The singer to-day writes about things unknown to the poet of yesterday. Not only has his View been changed, his vision has wid ened. He can employ any incident, any subject, instead of being restricted to legendary, classical or traditionally poetic themes. In learning to distinguish real beauty from mere prettiness, he is expressing the deepest aspects of life and, in so doing, he is recording not, as has been charged, more truth than poetry but more truth and poetry.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.