From the Introduction In the years following the war, Monroe''s enthusiasm about the progress of humankind was tempered by a sense that not all of the technological advances and globalization had been for the better. For one thing, she worried about its implication for the future of American poetry. Monroe strongly believed in the need to create a distinctly American poetic voice. While she welcomed international influence, she was cautious about American poets merely imitating European styles and feared that too much borrowing would rot the originality of American poetry. She often argued that art should reflect the unique attributes of a person, place, and time; this is in part why she was open to including such a wide variety of styles and subjects in both her own work and in the pages of Poetry . It is also why she began to worry that a shrinking world could lead to a one-size-fits-all art, undermining local traditions and voices. She also worried about the effects of modern technology on humankind writ large. And it is perhaps in these works that modern readers will find the most haunting resonances.

In poems such as "The Turbine" and "The Difference," as well as numerous essays and prose writings, one sees that while Monroe was at some level in awe of rapid globalization and technological growth, there is also an underlying unease, and her work frequently reflects the tension between the promise of progress and the need for grounded expression and interpersonal connection. This tension is perhaps best encapsulated in "The Difference," the title poem of her 1924 collection. The poem is divided into two sections, one labeled "1823" and the other "1923," and proceeds to show, in both style and content, the changes that have occurred in the past century. The speaker of the 1823 section sends her child out to run errands in town, directing her to various local shops and craftsmen--to the mill for wheat, the tanner for leather, and the glover, to ask him to turn the leather into gloves for a wedding present. The life of the daughter is circumscribed by the boundaries of the town and the repeated cycle of chores and errands that need running, and the work of a woman is only to "do her part to make her country great / And build the future firmly on the past." Flash forward to 1923 and another daughter is writing back home to her mother from China, letting her know that a grandchild has been born: "Born in Peking, / To grow up in Russia, perhaps, / And vote in Chicago, / And marry in Caracas!" The supplies to be gathered now come from across the globe--rubber from Congo, hemp from Manila, metal from Pittsburgh, sugar from Cuba, avocados from Panama. And while this new globalized world has led to new opportunities for the young speaker and seems, on the one hand, vibrant and exciting, it has also led to distance and disconnection, culminating in a refrain that begins partway through the section: "I fear." The fear of war, which has long plagued humankind, remains: I fear Not only because this devilish god-like power Of massed and ordered men Turns into fury Whenever some autocrat-- Imperial, proletarian-- Shouts a proud "I!" And waves a patterned rag; Fury that reddens The green earth.

But alongside this fear has come perhaps a greater, more existential one: I fear for the human spirit left alone In vastness-- Alone with too much knowledge That obliterates God, Alone with too much power That separates souls; Alone in crowds, Crowds huge beyond reach of a leader, Crowds moving back and forth, Shouting this cry or that; Crowds laboring, loving, hating-- They know not what nor why, Spending their passion for confusion and sorrow, Till it goes to bitter seed, And sows Greed. I fear for him, for her-- The human atom Caught in the immense, the incomprehensible drift. This section of the poem carries much the same central message as T. S. Eliot''s "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"--which had first appeared in the pages of Poetry nine years earlier--and in language clearer, more concise, but no less powerful. And as the world now grapples with the rise and still largely unknown societal effects of social media, artificial intelligence, and a daily life that seems more and more dominated by the digital, Monroe''s fears of an increasingly distant, atomized existence for humankind seem all too real. Indeed, the false (or at least selective) sense of connection often provided by social media could well be described as being "alone in crowds.

" Monroe''s poetic ruminations--both in "The Difference" and throughout her work--on the tension inherent in the notion of "progress" are well worth considering in an increasingly autocratic age, filled with much waving of "patterned rag[s]" and more and more reddened earth. One of Monroe''s favorite poets, Walt Whitman, famously concluded the preface to his first book by stating that "[t]he proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he absorbed it." While Monroe has been absorbed into the national consciousness for her work as an editor, helping to usher in a new age of poetry in America, she has not been absorbed for her work as a poet and her poems remain largely unknown and unheralded. That she should be best remembered for Poetry magazine and its continued influence would likely not have displeased Monroe. But, as discussed at the beginning of this introduction, the title of her autobiography makes clear that she unquestionably thought of herself first and foremost as a poet; her life was, after all, A Poet''s Life . It seems high time, then, nearly ninety years after her death, that the poetry of Harriet Monroe return to print and be given a fair hearing. Monroe chose another line from Whitman to serve as the motto of Poetry , including it in the original call sent out to prospective contributors and printing it at the end of the magazine''s first issue: "To have great poets there must be great audiences, too." Harriet Monroe played an incalculable role in the creation of a greater audience for poetry in the United States in the twentieth century.

She now deserves an audience of her own. [end of excerpt].