In this volume W. Dale Nelson offers minibiographies of key British and American poets who at one time or another worked as journalists. Examining the work of such poets as Whittier, Whitman,
Kipling, and Coleridge, the author presents a unique portrait of their writing process and influences.
Nelson's stories also bring to light the ever-present struggle between poetic truth and literal journalistic truth. Nelson explores, through well-sourced examples, both sides of this literary
relationship. The claim that poetry can breathe fresh creativity into journalism, the claim that journalism can provide poetry with strong, spare prose, and the claim that journalism "rusts
out" the creative juices are all considered with a straightforward and jargon-free prose that will leave the reader thoughtful about what defines both fields of writing.
