The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)

Summary

“Writers and Books.” New York Recorder, March 25, 1894, p. 6

Mr. Stephen Crane, whose first novel, “Maggie,” won high praise from prominent authors last year, and whose second story was mentioned in The Recorder a few weeks ago, has written a volume of poems which will probably create considerable discussion when it is published. The poems are uncompromisingly realistic, and in their composition the author has ignored the laws of form. He is only 22 years of age and intensely devoted to realism.

Harry Thurston Peck. “Some Recent Volumes of Verse.” Bookman 1 (May 1895), p. 254

Mr. Stephen Crane is the Aubrey Beardsley of poetry. When one first takes up his little book of verse and notes the quite too Beardsleyesque splash of black upon its staring white boards, and then on opening it discovers that the “lines” are printed wholly in capitals, and that they are unrhymed and destitute of what most poets regard as rhythm, the general impression is of a writer who is bidding for renown wholly on the basis of his eccentricity. But just as Mr. Beardsley with all his absurdities is none the less a master of black and white, so Mr. Crane is a true poet whose verse, long after the eccentricity of its form has worn off, fascinates us and forbids us to lay the volume down until the last line has been read.