Book excerpt: Self-published by Edwin Arlington Robinson in 1896, while he was still an unknown poet, The Torrent and The Night Before was a brave precursor to the brilliant new imaginings of 20th-century poetry. Robinson (1869-1935) kept writing and went on to win three Pulitzers, but a few of his best-known poems such as "Luke Havergal", "The House on the Hill", and "John Evereldown" are in this first book. A contemporary of Robert Frost and Thomas Hardy, Robinson held to traditional forms but explored new subjects in poetry, throwing off the musty, archaic cloak of most 19th-century verse.