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| War Is Kind and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) | 
| Author: Stephen Crane
Publisher: Dover Publications
Category: Book
Buy New: $1.25
New (7) from $1.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1202604
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 64
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.2
ISBN: 0486404242
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.4
EAN: 9780486404240
ASIN: 0486404242
Publication Date: June 19, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Bitter, Yet Good January 31, 2006
Stephen Crane is more well known for his prose than his poetry, being the author of The Red Badge of Courage. This is partly because his poetry is very unlike the poetry of others (and thus not generally considered "good"). The poems of this collection are often very simple and short. He tends to focus more on the bare bones in his poetry, using his words to establish a philosophical meaning or to give off the impression of a strong emotion. As a result, he does not use a lot of flowery imagery, and the poems are short and to the point. A lot of the times, his poetry is either hit or miss. Some of the poems are extremely good. Others seem like something a three year old could write.
Personally, I find Crane's poetry very entertaining and provacative, for the most part. When I first read his poetry, I was astonished to see how unashamedly antitheistic much of his work was. Many of his poems center around the idea of humanism or the irrelevance and unimportance of God. The poems "God lay dead in heaven" and "Should the wide world roll away" evoke a sense of Crane's strong passion for humanity and love, as the themes of these poems resonate with his courage to deny even the idea of God for the love of man. He also writes several poems that question the justness of God, wondering how such a being could punish the innocent, or how people could consider such a being just. Almost all of his poems focus upon some moral issue, such as the absurdity of war, the difference between good and evil, or the goodness of God.
The poem "In the desert" is perhaps his most well known, with its theme of a grudging self-acceptance in its depiction of a creature eating its own bitter heart. "The impact of a dollar upon the heart" and "God lay dead in heaven" are also considered to be among his best.
Crane's poems are rather easy to read and interpret, and this is perhaps why is poetry isn't considered to be of the same quality as his prose. Conciseness and clarity, elements which are necessary and beneficial to prose, are often not even relevant to poetry. The fact that Crane's poetry so often spells everything out to simply and concisely (he was, after all, trained as a newspaper writer) is perhaps the reason his poetry often fails to be anthologized. However, though the interpretations are often on the face of his poems, clear as day, I don't feel this detracts from the power or significance of the message he delivers with his poetry. Many of his poems, indeed, are simply beautifully written, despite his refusal to cover his poetry with flowery images.
I'd recommend this work as a good example of Poetry Lite--it is poetry that can be read like prose, and in which the meaning of the words is more important than the interpretation or the imagery or the arrangement.
 Short, striking and symbolic poems May 3, 2005
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This volume contains the contents of both of the volumes of poetry Crane published in his lifetime. Short, striking and symbolic poems which are considered a prelude to the poetic movement 'Imagism'.
Though I do not know Crane's work well what I have read gives the sense and feeling of a true poet.
Rather a shock to read June 8, 2001
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Dark and rather succinct, it's a little more than what a normal thinking and somewhat religious person might want to read after a lunch repast. What grips me here is that this man must (MUST!) KNOW God, must have met Him severally, and must have been denied some sort of heaven by God. The thing that makes me so impressed and in one passage, breath-taken, is that this man had to go through tremendous pressure, stress (his peers and friends hated him and laughed at his creativity) and ultimately, consumption, to create this small (and quite inexpensive) collection of poems. "War is Kind" is sarcastic, I agree, as some would say, but I also think that Crane's wars were waged not only on the Somme or in the trenches in some Eastern front, but they were waged with desire, for heaven with or without the presence of women or lovers, waged with the Ultimate thoughts he was being given so as to recall God's ear to bend to his poems. I like the book so far that I've read. It benefits the poet-in-progress to study Stephen Crane, and it also might help to not be quite so deeply drawn into his case against his maker and himself by reading some poems without much sobriety. For a $..., someone wishing to know Truth might be wealthy in more ways than the list price. Thanks, Stephen Crane.
MUST HAVE!!!!! December 9, 2000
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Stephen Crane was such and eloquent poet. His works always seem to question both himself and society at large. "War is Kind" is the picture of this as Crane mocks the idea of glory in war, using sarcasm to condemn war even as he praises it. This is a wonderful book, one that everyone should at least read if they don't own it, but this is such a great price, it should be a must-have for every literary scholar.
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