SOURCE: Szefel, Lisa. “Encouraging Verse: William S. Braithwaite and the Poetics of Race.” The New England Quarterly 74, no. 1 (March 2001): 32-61.

In the following essay, Szefel discusses Braithwaite's role in revitalizing American poetry in the early years of the twentieth century.

By the first years of the twentieth century, America boasted international leadership in industry, finance, and corporate organization. The country could not, however, brag about its literary prowess. In the decades following the Civil War, no poet arose to rival Whitman, nor did any endowments, prizes, or professional forums exist to promote verse. Magazines sometimes printed poems to fill space, but only if they conformed to genteel guidelines. As Edgar Lee Masters lamented about the era, “There was no market for anything.”¹ In a society that venerated businessmen and a Protestant work ethic, pursuing a career in poetry seemed precious, and so aspiring bards such as Ezra Pound...