Photograph of the cover of "Over Here: War Time Rhymes" by Edgar A. Guest, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is dark blue with the first part of the title in dark blue inside of a gold banner, the rest of the title and author stamped in gold under it.

Photographs of "October and Other Poems" by Robert Bridges, held by UNT Special Collections. The book has an old white cover, framed by a black line and the title printed at the top in black. Image 2, "The West Front" and "To the United States of America." Page 32 contains the title of the first one at the top, and page 33 has the other one at the top followed by the date April 1917.

Photograph of the cover of "The Red Flower: Poems Written in War Time" by Henry Van Dyke, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is white with a dark blue spine, the top of the front contains the title at the top and author at the bottom in dark blue print. In the middle of it is an orange/red flower design.

Photograph of the title page from "Sonnets from a Prison Camp" by Archibald Allan Bowman, held by UNT Special Collections. Scottish philosopher and poet Allan Archibald Bowman (1883-1936) was working as a professor at Princeton University when World War I began. He took a leave of absence in 1915, enlisted in the British Army, and was assigned to the Highland Light Infantry. Three years later, Bowman was taken prisoner by German forces during the Battle of Lys. The poems collected in Sonnets from a Prison Camp were written after Bowman’s capture, between April 27 and July 25, 1918. Most were composed at the Rastatt prison camp, though some were written after Bowman was transferred to Hesepe. The volume itself contains twelve chronologically arranged sections and a clean, minimal layout with one sonnet per page. This neatly bound, 152-page book has a board cover with thread wear on the bottom and top of the spine. A lithographed errata slip on different paper is pasted into the binding and precedes the title page. Part of the Soldier Poets section of the exhibit, Sonnets from a Prison Camp contains poems that reflect on the horrors of war, the boredom of life in a …

Photograph of the cover of "From an Outpost and Other Poems" by Leslie Coulson, held by UNT Special Collections. The white paper cover has a thin orange line that frames the title, followed by a photo of a young man and the author under the picture all in orange tint.

Photograph of "Naked Warriors" by Herbert Read, held by UNT Special Collections. In 1917, poet and literary critic Herbert Read co-founded the avant-garde quarterly journal Arts and Letters, which in 1919 published Read’s book Naked Warriors. (The volume’s first section “Kneeshaw Goes to War” originally appeared in Arts and Letters, as noted in the contents.) This sixty-page volume of poetry and prose explores the arc of the British soldier’s combat experience in World War I. Read, who served in the war and was awarded both the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross, includes an epigraph before each section, visually separating sections that are joined by a thematic progression rather than common characters. Before the contents page, readers encounter a six-line poem entitled “Parody of a Forgotten Beauty” and a one-paragraph preface in which Read encourages his generation to “strive to create a beauty where hitherto it has had no absolute existence” (5). This desire is reflected in the cover illustration, thought to be the work of artist Wyndham Lewis. The central figure employs Vorticism, an early twentieth-century British art movement using a form of urban cubism to express the dynamism of the modern world. The book is bound in …

Photograph of the cover of "Forward, March!" by Angela Morgan, held by UNT Special Collections. The dark red cover has the title at the top left corner, followed by a graphic of a hand holding a torch and the author. This all encased by a line, and all in gold lettering/lines.

Photograph of the cover of "Soldier Songs from Anzac" by Tom Skeyhill, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is worn lavender in color, with a double border in black ink. The title is at the top, and the publishing information at the bottom also in black ink.

Photographs of "Selected Poems on Woodrow Wilson," held by UNT Special Collections. The first image, the pale blue cover of the book with the title and author printed at the top of the front in dark blue. The second image shows the title page of the book, including the editor, illustrator and publishing information. Image 3, "The Crusader (In Memory of Woodrow Wilson)" poem by Thomas Curtis Clark on page 57. On the page to the left of it is an illustration of a pointed doorway, flags seen inside of it.

Photograph of the cover of "Song of the Soldiers" by Thomas Hardy, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is brown, the front framed a black design. The song and author are at the top and underlined in black ink.

Photograph of the cover of "Rupert Brooke: A Memoir" by Edward Marsh, held by UNT Special Collections. The simple black cover has the title in a white box at the top, the title inside it framed by an orange line. Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was the son of a Rugby schoolmaster and attended school at Rugby and later at King’s College of Cambridge University. After completing his education, Brooke continued writing poetry and became one of the founders of the first anthology of Georgian Poetry. Now little studied, it was a dominant poetic movement of the time until it was supplanted by Imagism and the High Modernism of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and W. B. Yeats. While not as experimental as the Modernists, the Georgian poets did look to free poetry from the ornate language of Victorian verse and employ in its place plain and concrete language. Along with the Georgian poets, Brooke also interacted with members of the influential Bloomsbury Group, which included such prominent writers as Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster. When war broke out, Brooke enlisted but never saw combat, instead dying of illness in March 1915 on his way to Gallipoli. Despite this, Brooke became …

Photograph of the cover of "The Other Side: And Other Poems" by Gilbert Frankau, held by UNT Special Collections. The worn orange cover contains the title in a white box on the top left.

Photograph of the cover of "Somewhere in France: And Other Poems" by Ella F. Cowan, held by UNT Special Collections. The grey textured cover has the title and author stamped on the front at the top.

Photographs of "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is dark blue with the title on the front in gold lettering inside gold oval. Image 2, frontispiece containing a photo of a soldier in uniform titled "John McCrae." Image 3, facsimile inscription. with the page on the right written in black ink handwriting. Image 3, book opened up to "In Flanders Fields" on the right page.

Photograph of the cover of "Patriotic Toasts" by Fred Emerson Brooks, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is striped with red at the top, white in the middle and blue at the bottom. The title is over it in big black letters with the author in the bottom right corner in red lettering. This edition of Patriotic Toasts was published in 1917 by Forbes and Company in Chicago. Each page has a lithographic decorative blue border surrounding the printed text, and the dense cardboard cover contains a stoic depiction of Uncle Sam carrying an American flag, reinforcing the book’s self-proclaimed patriotism. The author, Fred Emerson Brooks, a popular 19th century poet, wrote several books of “toasts” – short poems likely meant to be read aloud in social gatherings. A notice in the back of this volume advertises Brooks’s other publications, including the comically titled Cream Toasts and Buttered Toasts, with a series of quotes from major newspapers attesting to Brooks’s sparkling wit. The collection of poems in this book captures the vigor of the American spirit at the time of its entry into World War I. Poems such as “Old Glory” and “Liberty’s Banner” are dense with the nationalist …

Photograph of the cover of "Peace and Patriotism" by Elva S. Smith, held by UNT Special Collections. The pale blue cover has a black stamped graphic over most of the front of a woman wearing a long white dress. The woman holds the dark train with stars up and holds a dove in her arms. The title is at the bottom in big letters.

Photograph of the cover of "Any Soldier to His Son" by George Willis, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is grey, with the spine being darker. The title is in a silver frame on the top right, the lettering also in silver. In 1919, a collection of poems titled Any Soldier to His Son, authored by George Willis, was published by George Allen & Unwin LTD out of London. Although there is not much readily available biographical information on Willis, it is known that he was a soldier in the British army during World War I. The book itself is small, with an olive green cover designed by C.R.W. Nevinson but otherwise lacking illustrations other than the ornate publisher’s insignia on the title page. There is also no dedication or foreword, leaving the reader with little direction on how to read the book. However, the book concludes with a one-page advertisement for three other books of war poetry also published by George Allen & Unwin, including A Gallipoli Diary by Major Graham Gillam, another first-hand account of battle. Any Soldier to His Son contains eighteen poems, ranging in length but written primarily in rhyming couplets. Notable titles include “Any …

Photographs of "From the Front" trench poetry edited by C.E. Andrews, held by UNT Special Collections. It is bound in an uniform green cloth binding, and the front cover bears the title “From the Front,” the full name of the editor in all caps, and a logo of two swords crossed, a hat in the middle, and olive leaves wreath circling the swords, all of which was stamped with gold metallic color.. Image 2, page 198 and 199. The page on the right is titled "Good-By." Image 3, page 200 and 201. Image 4, page 202 and 203. The page on the right is titled "Matey." During World War I, a genre of poetry emerged from the front lines termed “Trench Poetry.” It was inspired by the soldiers’ daily life on the front, especially the constant witnessing and interacting with horrifying scenes. The editor of this book, Lieutenant C. E. Andrews, served in the Aviation Section, Signal Reserve Corps during World War I. Surprisingly, during the course of his examination of “thousands of the poems from the front [that] have appeared in newspapers and magazines,” Andrews learned that most trench poetry was not written by soldiers, but by “men of …

Photograph of the cover of "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man" by Robert W. Service, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is olive green the title and author within a decorative frame, all in gold lettering and lines.

Photograph of the title page of "The Shepherd" by Edmund Blunden, held by UNT Special Collections. To the left of the title page is a short list of poems written by Blunden.

Photographs of "Songs of the Shrapnel Shell" by Cyril Morton Horne, held by UNT Special Collections. The green cover contains the title at the top in an indented part of the cover with the author all in gold lettering. Image 2, the frontispiece/title page. On the left of the title page is a black and white photograph of a soldier in uniform. Image 3, pages 42 and 43 from the book, titled "Chrysallis" on the left page.

Photograph of the frontispiece/title page of "Easter at Ypres 1915" by W.S.S. Lyon, held by UNT Special Collections. The title page has the title at the top and publishing information at the bottom. The page on the left contains a black and white photo of the side profile of a young man in uniform.

Photographs of "Cease Firing: Fifty Poems of the New Peace," held by UNT Special Collections. The first image is the cover of "Cease Firing," blue/green color with the title imprinted in gold at the top in between three lines of gold. The second image is of the title page and frontispiece. The frontispiece is a black and white illustration with the words piece at the top made up of small birds. Image 3, poem titled "Peace Shall Live" expanding over two pages. At the very top of the left page it is titled "Cease Firing" and the top of the right page titled "Seek Peace and Pursue It."

Photographs of "Friends" by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, held by UNT Special Collections. The cover is brownish paper, the title at the top, author in the middle and publishing info at the bottom all in black ink lettering. Image 2, the page on the left contains a list of books by the same author: Battle, Thoroughfarers, Borderlands, Fires, Daily Bread, Akra the Slave, and Stonefolds. The page on the right is "To the Memore of Rupert Brooke." Image 3, open book with page on the left blank, and the page on the right containing a small poem dated 23rd April, 2015. Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was the son of a Rugby schoolmaster and attended school at Rugby and later at King’s College of Cambridge University. After completing his education, Brooke continued writing poetry and became one of the founders of the first anthology of Georgian Poetry. Now little studied, it was a dominant poetic movement of the time until it was supplanted by Imagism and the High Modernism of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and W. B. Yeats. While not as experimental as the Modernists, the Georgian poets did look to free poetry from the ornate language of Victorian verse and employ …