ALBUM OF POETS 1947 SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT MYRON E. ROWE KINGSTON, NY

Item #1547

9" x 12.5" Handmade anthology of twenty poets, compiled by Myron E. Rowe as a high school English project in Kingston, New York, March 1947. Bound between painted wooden covers attached with small brass hinges and laced with leather cord, the volume is titled “Album of Poets.” A neat red “A+” on the title page indicates Rowe received top marks for the work.

The project illustrates how poetry was taught and absorbed in mid-20th century American classrooms. The index reveals a canon both traditional and modern: Robert Browning, Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, William Ernest Henley, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Langston Hughes, Leigh Hunt, Rudyard Kipling, John Masefield, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Allan Poe, Carl Sandburg, William Shakespeare, Sara Teasdale, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman, and William Wordsworth.

Each poet is represented with:

A typed biographical or bibliographic entry (blue ink, thin white paper mounted on purple construction paper).

A copied poem, among them Frost’s “Stars,” Sandburg’s “Fog,” Shakespeare’s lyric “Tell me where is fancy bred…” (Merchant of Venice), and Hughes’ inclusion as a modern African American voice within this largely traditional roster.

The 60 pages are separated by black construction paper with poet names hand-lettered in white ink. Occasional typos and textual slips (e.g. Shakespeare’s “Fancy” treated as a standalone poem) reveal the youthful hand at work, while also documenting the transmission of texts in classroom settings.

Well-preserved, with light toning and adhesive shadows.

Price: $250.00