Partisans and Poets explores the popular poetries which interacted with American political culture during World War I. Studying the interplay between poets, political groups and social transformation, the book draws upon archival materials to explore poetry used by the Woman's Peace Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, the NAACP, and The Vigilantes, a patriotic writers' syndicate. Van Wienen describes how poetry in mainstream newspapers and major-press anthologies bolstered dominant, nationalist ideologies, and demonstrates how pacifist and socialist verse mobilised minority groups contending for hegemonic power. While recovering the work of several forgotten modern poets - women, blacks, pacifists, patriots, and radicals - the book asserts that wartime poetry engaged in complex negotiations with specific and often dangerous political and historical circumstances.
