If my memory is not fooling me, which is always a possibility, this poem was accompanied in my high school lit textbook by Millet's famous "Man With a Hoe." I had forgotten the poem but that face has stayed with me for all these years. It troubled me and still does. Is this really the almost subhuman face of the peasant through the ages? I think probably not, but....
I suppose it's well known among the more educated but I've never run into the term "low modernism" before. I've often heard the work of Eliot and others described as "high modernism," but "low modernism" is new to me. It makes perfect sense. It became clear to me at some point after high school that my assumption that Sandburg and Eliot were both practicing more or less the same kind of poetry was wrong. Sandburg would be a low modernist, right? Some of his stuff still appeals to me. Like the one about the rats in the ruins where the golden girls sang "we are the greatest nation, nothing like us ever was."
I have found Vachel Lindsay in several anthologies (omitted entirely in others), particularly the anthology of Modern American Poetry edited by Cary Nelson, who describes the house Vachel (the son of a physician) grew up in the final two decades of the nineteen century: the house, which once belonged to Abraham Lincoln's sister-in-law, was across the street from the governor's mansion; Vachel's family home was where, 20 years before, a party was thrown for Lincoln after he was elected president. This party is described in a marvelous (Pulitzer-Prize) book by Jon Meacham called And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. The anthology does not include Lindsay's poem about Lincoln--another good one--I was able to find elsewhere. One imagines how deeply Lindsay as a boy was moved by stories of the great Abraham Lincoln, so revered especially in Springfield; I can't believe he was thinking of Lincoln somehow as he chose his life's work and walked thousands on thousands of miles East and West and South across America. My heart goes out to him even if--perhaps especially--as he wrote probably only a few poems we can be moved by now. Thank you again for this 'episode' of Poems Ancient and Modern. And by the way, I highly recommend Meacham's account of Lincoln and 'the American Struggle.' All best, Z
Thanks for your perceptive comments about Vachel Lindsay, my fellow Illinoisan. He was a singular poet and person in many ways. One small quibble: Lindsay's poem "The Leaden-Eyed" is not in blank verse, as you state, but rhymes its eight lines of iambic pentameter in an abcbdefe pattern. Had Lindsay broken the poem into two quatrains, this probably would have made the rhymes stand out more. Lindsay uses the same rhyme scheme, this time broken into quatrains, in his better-known poem "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight."
Thank you, I will be trying to remember and recite this all day. Not sure what to do with it as a call to action (catechize, donate, educate?) but it sounds so beautiful.
It is a fine service to remember Vachel Lindsay.
If my memory is not fooling me, which is always a possibility, this poem was accompanied in my high school lit textbook by Millet's famous "Man With a Hoe." I had forgotten the poem but that face has stayed with me for all these years. It troubled me and still does. Is this really the almost subhuman face of the peasant through the ages? I think probably not, but....
https://www.getty.edu/museum/media/images/web/enlarge/00087901.jpg
I suppose it's well known among the more educated but I've never run into the term "low modernism" before. I've often heard the work of Eliot and others described as "high modernism," but "low modernism" is new to me. It makes perfect sense. It became clear to me at some point after high school that my assumption that Sandburg and Eliot were both practicing more or less the same kind of poetry was wrong. Sandburg would be a low modernist, right? Some of his stuff still appeals to me. Like the one about the rats in the ruins where the golden girls sang "we are the greatest nation, nothing like us ever was."
Yeah, Sandburg is a good example
I have found Vachel Lindsay in several anthologies (omitted entirely in others), particularly the anthology of Modern American Poetry edited by Cary Nelson, who describes the house Vachel (the son of a physician) grew up in the final two decades of the nineteen century: the house, which once belonged to Abraham Lincoln's sister-in-law, was across the street from the governor's mansion; Vachel's family home was where, 20 years before, a party was thrown for Lincoln after he was elected president. This party is described in a marvelous (Pulitzer-Prize) book by Jon Meacham called And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle. The anthology does not include Lindsay's poem about Lincoln--another good one--I was able to find elsewhere. One imagines how deeply Lindsay as a boy was moved by stories of the great Abraham Lincoln, so revered especially in Springfield; I can't believe he was thinking of Lincoln somehow as he chose his life's work and walked thousands on thousands of miles East and West and South across America. My heart goes out to him even if--perhaps especially--as he wrote probably only a few poems we can be moved by now. Thank you again for this 'episode' of Poems Ancient and Modern. And by the way, I highly recommend Meacham's account of Lincoln and 'the American Struggle.' All best, Z
Thanks for your perceptive comments about Vachel Lindsay, my fellow Illinoisan. He was a singular poet and person in many ways. One small quibble: Lindsay's poem "The Leaden-Eyed" is not in blank verse, as you state, but rhymes its eight lines of iambic pentameter in an abcbdefe pattern. Had Lindsay broken the poem into two quatrains, this probably would have made the rhymes stand out more. Lindsay uses the same rhyme scheme, this time broken into quatrains, in his better-known poem "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight."
Fixed!
Thanks for the fix!
Wonderful—but it’s not blank verse.
Fixed!
It is a strong poem, with resonance for the weak and the poor.
Thank you, I will be trying to remember and recite this all day. Not sure what to do with it as a call to action (catechize, donate, educate?) but it sounds so beautiful.
Given the 1914 context, this is a moving poem, and your commentary is so insightful, so knowledgeable. Many thanks.