Behind Their Lines

 Readers may be familiar with the poem “ Villanelle ” that Roland Leighton wrote for Vera Brittain in April 1915 before the couple became en...

“Undaunted April crept and sewed     Her violets in dead men's faces...”* A previous post on this blog has shared Muriel Stuart’s “ It’s...

Attack Developing in the Champagne, Blanc Mont Sector   Claggett Wilson, ca. 1919 Smithsonian American Art Museum Soldiers’ accounts of the ...

The Harvest Moon, Harvey Dunn (Smithsonian AF.25720 )   Words are soldiers of fortune Hired by different ideas To provide an importance for ...

Vestal Virgin, by Antonio Canova (Getty Museum) In the podcast episode “Surplus Women,” Caroline Campton says,  In 1921, the British governm...

Aline Kilmer with Kenton, c. 1909 (Joyce Kilmer House & New Brunswick Historical Society) Joyce Kilmer was a rising American poet, famou...

There’s something extraordinary about holding an old book in your hands, wondering about its history and journey. This summer in an Oxford b...