A collection of more than two hundred poems, along with an extended biographical analysis, permits a comprehensive assessment of the work of a man Thomas McGrath described as one of the very best of the revolutionary poets.

Collected works of Vincent Ferrini, known as the people's poet of the 20thcentury. With a voice emerging from class tensions, labor struggles, the Great Depression, and World War II, Vincent Ferrini lived as a people's poet crying out for an end to exploitation and organized greed. Radical Christian gnosis and the conviction that poetry should be more than a display of word-craft distinguished him from poets like T. S. Eliot, infusing his work with dynamic images of Christ as a fighter, a revolutionary, and a martyr in opposing the mighty for the sake of the poor.

Juxtaposing the high literary art of well-known modernists with wartime verse by working men and women, soldiers, and pacifists, Rendezvous with Death collects an unprecedented range of American poetic responses to the Great War.

This masterfully assembled volume, arranged chronologically, reveals the poets' shifting, conflicting reactions to the war and highlights their efforts to shape U.S. policies and define American attitudes. Mark W. Van Wienen's introduction describes the politically charged, ubiquitous, and rapid responses necessary in a culture soaked in poetry, and his historical...