A new anthology of World War I poetry edited by Mark Van Wienen, an associate English professor at NIU, may be a useful tool for teaching students about war in the early 1900s.

The book, “Rendezvous with Death: American Poems of the Great War,” includes work from pro- and anti-war poets.

Van Wienen has been interested in 20th century American poetry since his time in graduate school. He said that poetry written during the time of the Great War is severely under-analyzed – this motivated him to develop the anthology.

“I thought it would be important to find out what poets were writing during the war at a time when it might shape America’s response to World War I,” he said. “I’m very much interested in bringing to light some poems that have not been very often studied.”

Van Wienen found no shortage of material to work with.

“I found that American poetry was incredibly popular [during the war],” he said. “Lots and lots of people from professionals to amateurs were writing it, and poems were appearing daily in many newspapers across the country.”

There are many parallels between the debates about war during World War I and those that are happening right now, Van Wienen said.

“The end of WWI came with the Treaty of Versailles, which basically took a punitive and hostile attitude toward Germany,” he said. “And that kind of punitive attitude is very much what we see in the war against terrorism. The lesson of WWI is that to seek to contain a dangerous or potentially dangerous enemy by hostile action is to sew the seeds of a greater and more terrible conflict.”

Anti-war poets during WWI took a similar view of their conflict.

“The anti-war poems of WWI make this point again and again: That to deal with any other country through violence is to breed more violence. I think that’s a clear lesson and legacy of WWI, and it’s a point at which the anti-war poets were right,” Van Wienen said.

The book went into publication in October and is available by special request from any local bookstore. This is good news for teachers and students who may want to bring the material into the classroom.

As historical documents, the poems are extremely useful to students, senior history major Amber Emken said.

“Primary sources such as poetry and diaries can tell you so much about what was going on at the time,” she said. “That’s one of the things that is stressed in the history department.”

Associate history professor Rose Feurer agreed.

“It’s really clear that students are often moved by readings from the time period,” she said. “It allows them to see ordinary people as well as ‘great’ figures in a different context.”