Poetry of the Civil War

This beautiful book brings together some of the most superb and moving poetry from the civil war period.

On the outset of the conflict, Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier's published 'A Word for the Hour'. It was to herald the birth of a new era of American poetry - one that expressed the hopes and fears, and the hatred and hostility, of a nation torn in two. The civil war pitched brother against brother, father against son and left a legacy burned deep in the American psyche.

Poetry of the Civil War compiles 70 of these astounding poems, bringing the tragedy, heroism, pathos, and futility of the bloodshed vividly to life. Readers will be left with an indelible impression of what it must have been like to live through some of the nation's darkest hours.

Poems include:
• A Word for the Hour by John Greenleaf Whittier
• O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Witman
• Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caroline by Oliver Wendell Holmes
• The Blue and the Grey by Francis Miles Finch
• Stonewall Jackson's Way by John Williamson Palmer
• When I Was Small a Woman Died by Emily Dickenson

John Boyes has written for television, radio and several British, American and Canadian periodicals. His most recent titles are Character Parts, a study of characters in Canadian literature, and a children's book on Canada. He is the editor of six previous literary anthologies. A Montrealer, he lives with his wife and daughter in Vancouver.