Stephen Crane, who died at age 28 from tuberculosis in June 1900, is remembered more for his fiction, such as The Red Badge of Courage, than his poetry. But perhaps, argues Jynne Dilling Marton, this should not be the case:
These poems are Biblical parables for a secular age: instructions for how to press through what we may feel is a lonely, barren desert of a life with clear eyes, dignity and a sense of humor.