Customer Reviews

The black riders, and other lines

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Back in high school I struggled through Red Badge of Courage. Likewise, Crane's novel about a young prostitute, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, bored me in college. But along the way I discovered that Crane wrote poetry as well. His poetry is not the sentimental and genteel poetry often associated with the 19th century. His aggresive free-verse is more an agonized scream and a punch in the gut. Crane delights in calling out hypocrisy and exposing it to the light of day.

Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Menken were the "paragons of pessimism" during their days. To that group add the voice of Stephen Crane who was their equal in expressing the cynicism of the age; but Crane's cynicism often came wrapped around a seed of hope for mankind.

Both this volume and War is Kind are highly recommended. The only thing that kept this book from a 5-star review is the formatting that runs one poem into the next, separated only by the title. But since these are relatively short volumes, that is a slight complaint.

Although the excellent "Red Badge of Courage" is more famous, his poems are, in my opinion, his greatest work. As an atheist/agnostic, I find his poetry captures the best and worst of humanity.