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1House of Dust: A Symphony

By Conrad Aiken

The House of Dust is a poem written in the four-movement format of a classical symphony. Hauntingly beautiful despite its bleak post-World War I depictions of human mortality and loss, the poem develops its movements around central images such as Japanese ukiyo-e ("floating world") woodblock prints, touching the reader's senses with endlessly evocative allusions to wind, sea, and weather. In this underlying Japanese sensibility and dependence on central perceptual images, Aiken's poem is similar to poetry of Imagists of the time such as Amy Lowell. Also deeply influenced by the concepts of modern psychology, Aiken delved deeply into individual human identity and emotion. - Summary by Expatriate

Written at the height of the Great War, the poems of this volume are suffused with a sense of melancholy and tragedy. Some of the poems (such as "1915: The Trenches") speak directly of war-time scenes and images, but even those which don't do so are permeated with a feeling of loss and desolation occasioned by the War. In spite of this pervading pathos, however, these poems are also filled with haunting beauty of imagery, drawn as Aiken so often does from natural images of wind, sea, and weather. - Summary by Expatriate

3Border Riflemen

By Albert W. Aiken

In this dime novel set on the American frontier, we meet a beautiful young girl, Sadie, who is fending off advances from the rough woodsman, known as Black Will. Luckily, Cooney Joe comes to her rescue while her father is out hunting. Life is hard on the frontier, and there is constant danger from Black Hawk and his warriors, but Sadie and her father try to live in peace with everyone.