The Land They Loved Volume IV

OUR COLLECTION OF SOUTHERN POETS AND POEMS, The Land They Loved, as stated in previous volumes, is made not from the viewpoint of a literary critic but from that of a historian interested in how the Southern people have expressed their life and spirit in verse, a type of communication that carries its own kind of truth. The New South, for historians, is the period from the end of Reconstruction to World War I. We have expanded the time period a bit at both ends. Our poets' subjects are largely traditional: love of family, home, State, and the South; Christian faith; nature; life on the land; love and sorrow. Further, they must deal, most of the time as positively as possible, with a society thrown into a bleak and impoverished life by conquering enemies. The two volumes of Poets and Poems of the New South, I am inclined to think, show an intellectual and artistic life with more than a little merit. They certainly show some admirable minds and accomplished poets.