Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities

    During World War I, Poetry magazine often included poems that related indirectly to the war in their emotional out-pourings on subjects such as death, as well as poems that served reflected the need for distraction in the form of romantic adoration of women as figures of innocence. In the post-war issues of Poetry, narrative poems make a distinct appearance in the magazine, indicating a shift in the consciousness of writers. As opposed to urgent emotional pleas, or brooding personal thoughts, which often were included in the previous volumes, there are many more imaginative and emotionally distant poems which take the form of narratives and songs.
    One such poem is “Crescent Moon,” by Elizabeth Robert Madox, which appears in the July issue of 1921, which includes three lines of non-word syllables, representing singing, in a poem which is only nine lines long. The subject matter itself is light--children delighted by catching sight of a crescent moon--and the rhyming pattern is similarly very simple. In January of 1922, another more distinctly narrative poem was published: “The Witch of Coos,” by Robert Frost. This poem is unusual in its inclusion of heavy quoting of two characters which appear in the text, even including the labels “The Mother,” and “The Son,” before each speaks. This imparts a theatrical mood, which is furthered by the narrator’s lack of emotional response within the poem. The events are recounted, and the response is left up to the reader. “White as the Snow,” by Edward Sapir, is a third poem that reads like a story, with no emotional response written in, and--like the other two poems--includes quoted dialogue. The subject matter includes a woman’s evasion of an unwanted marriage.
    The trend toward narrative poetry in post-war times may have reflected a lack of urgency, along with a sense of relief, and the desire for entertainment. Such poems being published during the so-called ‘roaring 20’s’ follows the decade’s interest in indulgence and freedom: the reader is left to chuckle, rejoice, or be astonished--with freedom of choice and individuality unifying these poems in their themes.