In the explosion of creative energy unleashed by America's birth as independent nation & modern economic power, poetry served a mass market as never before or since. Participants in one of their country's most important industries, poets -- many of whom were women -- helped forge the consciousness of a pioneering society, reaching into every home. As reflected in this anthology, love sonnets, nature poems, public forms of nursery rhymes, children's cautionary narratives, hymn lyrics, ringing odes to liberty & angry denunciations of slavery & oppression are central to the vitality & range of American literature of the 19th century. Bringing together the work of some 60 poets.