Poetry in service of war from a century ago, these brief, short run booklets include some of the most prominent poetic voices of World War I era England. During #NPH16, as we face war and racist saber rattling still, here is imperialism, jingoism, and patriotic fervor in Poems of the Great War and Twenty Poems from Rudyard Kipling. Just two of the numerous rare booklets and chapbooks, many from small British presses, in John Gould Fletcher's library @uarklibraries Special Collections. #poetry #kipling #rarebooks #WorldWarI #TheGreatWar #JohnGouldFletcher

We are moving into the warm, beautiful days of Spring this Ides of National Poetry Month. So perhaps it's good to be reminded of grimness as well in the season when, as the Bible says, kings go off to war. Stephen Crane can help with that. Here is a limited third edition of his 1895 The Black Riders and Other Lines published a year later in London after the first Copeland and Day Boston editions. It's in the rare books collection @uarklibraries. It was Crane's second published volume between Maggie and Red Badge, and the third edition includes the Black Orchid graphic used earlier, but now embossed on black leather boards. #uarklibraries #NPH16 #StephenCrane #blackorchid #rarebooks

John Gould Fletcher’s Goblins and Pagodas was published 100 years ago this National Poetry Month, April 1916. Among his early, Imagist works, he included several of the poems in the 1938 Selected Poems that earned him the first Pulitzer awarded to a poet from the American South or Arkansan. His papers and library are in the @uarklibraries special collections, but this first edition is in the circulating collection…when not at my house. #NPH16 #poetry #rarebooks #firstedition #JohnGouldFletcher #uarklibraries #uark

On this fine 9th day of National Poetry Month, I'm spending some time with the @uarklibraries first edition, circulating copy of Frost's Mountain Interval, "where we walked in spring beyond the covered bridge." 100 years old this year, the book marked the first publication of The Road not Taken. #poetry #firstedition #rarebooks #NPH16