The Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave. This illustrious phrase encapsulates the aspirations of America and its people. In this volume we feature 50 American poets beginning with the Colonist Anne Bradstreet in the 17th century, when American poetry was entirely rooted in its parental British forms. From here our classic poets take us through Centuries of history, through Independence and expansion Westward, across the cities and vast landscapes of their words. Along the journey we also meet the Imagists, the poets from the Harlem Renaissance by way of the Transcendentalists and the Fireside Poets. The giants of the poetic way loom large; Walt Whitman. Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Edna St Vincent Millay. Our rambling poetic stroll gives voice to the nation’s hopes, its dreams, its failings, its musings. We cannot hope to define America but we do provide the many changing moods and flavours of the times as we discover the essence of its soul.