Vachel Lindsay
Encyclopedia
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was an American poet
. He is considered the father of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted. His extensive correspondence with the poet Yeats
details his intentions to revive the musical qualities in poetry as had been practiced by the ancient Greeks.
Because of his identity as a performance artist and his use of American Midwest themes, Lindsay became known in the 1910s as the "Prairie
Troubador." For the final twenty years of his life, Lindsay was one of the best-known poets in America. His reputation was high enough to enable him to befriend, encourage, and mentor other poets, such as Langston Hughes
and Sara Teasdale
. However, his poetry lacked elements that encouraged the attention of academic scholarship
, and after his death he became an obscure figure.
, where his father — Vachel Thomas Lindsay — worked as a medical doctor and had considerable financial resources. As a result, the Lindsays lived next door to the Illinois Executive Mansion
, home of the Governor of Illinois
. This location of his childhood home had its influence on Lindsay, and one of his poems, "The Eagle Forgotten", eulogizes Illinois governor John P. Altgeld, whom Lindsay admired for his courage in pardoning the anarchists involved in the Haymarket Affair
— despite the strong protests of US President
Grover Cleveland
.
Growing up in Springfield influenced Lindsay in other ways as well, as evidenced in such poems as "On the Building of Springfield" and culminating in poems praising Springfield's most famous resident, Abraham Lincoln
. In "Lincoln", Lindsay exclaims "Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all!" In his 1914 poem "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (In Springfield, Illinois)", Lindsay specifically places Lincoln 'in' Springfield, with the poem opening:
Lindsay studied medicine at Hiram College
in Ohio
from 1897 to 1900, but he did not want to be a doctor. His parents pressured him toward medicine. One day Vachel wrote home to his parents saying that he wasn't meant to be a doctor and that his true living should be that of a painter. His parents wrote back saying that doctors can draw pictures in their free time. Leaving Hiram, he thought he would become an artist, and went to Chicago
to study at the Art Institute of Chicago
from 1900 to 1903. In 1904 he left to attend the New York School of Art (now The New School
) to study pen and ink. Lindsay remained interested in art for the rest of his life, drawing illustrations for some of his poetry. His art studies also probably led him to appreciate the new art form of silent film
, on which he wrote a book in 1915: The Art of the Moving Picture, generally considered the first book of film criticism, according to critic Stanley Kauffmann
, discussing Lindsay in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
.
While in New York in 1905 Lindsay turned to poetry in earnest. He tried to sell his poems on the streets. Self-printing his poems, he began to barter a pamphlet entitled "Rhymes To Be Traded For Bread", which he traded for food as a self-perceived modern version of a medieval troubadour
.
From March to May, 1906, Lindsay traveled roughly 600 miles on foot from Jacksonville, Florida
to Kentucky
, again trading his poetry for food and lodging. From April to May, 1908, Lindsay undertook another poetry-selling trek, walking from New York City
to Hiram, Ohio
.
From May to September 1912 he traveled — again on foot — from Illinois
to New Mexico
, trading his poems for food and lodging. During this last trek, Lindsay composed his most famous poem, "The Congo". On his return, Harriet Monroe
published in Poetry magazine first his poem "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" in 1913 and then "The Congo" in 1914. At this point, Lindsay became very well known.
Unlike Lindsay’s more purely intellectual contemporaries, the poet declaimed his works from the stage, complete with the extravagant gestures of a carnival barker and old time preacher, from the beginning declaring himself to be a product of what he termed ‘Higher Vaudeville’:
“I think that my first poetic impulse is for music; second a definite conception with the ring of the universe…” (Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters 1935, page 62) This is evidenced by the 1931 recording he made just before his suicide, his still-radical performances of ‘The Mysterious Cat’, ‘The Flower-Fed Buffaloes’ and parts of ‘The Congo’ exhibiting a fiery and furious, zany, at times incoherent delivery that appears to have owed more to jazz than poetry, though the highly religious Lindsay was always reluctant to align himself thus. Nevertheless, part of the success and great fame that Lindsay achieved — albeit briefly — was due to the singular manner in which he presented his poetry "fundamentally as a performance, as an aural and temporal experience...meant...to be chanted, whispered, belted out, sung, amplified by gesticulation and movement, and punctuated by shouts and whoops." [2]
His best-known poem, "The Congo," exemplified his revolutionary aesthetic of sound for sound's sake. It imitates the pounding of the drums in the rhythms and in onomotopeic nonsense words. At parts, the poem ceases to use conventional words when representing the chants of Congo's indigenous people, relying just on sound alone.
, an issue to which the vast majority of white America seemed blind. Additionally, W.E.B. Du Bois
hailed Lindsay's story "The Golden-Faced People" for its insights into racism. Lindsay saw himself as anti-racist not only in his own writing but in his encouragement of a writer; he credited himself with discovering Langston Hughes
, who, while working as a busboy at a Washington, D.C.
restaurant where Lindsay ate, gave Lindsay copies of his poems.
However, many contemporaries and later critics have contended over whether a couple of Lindsay's poems should be seen as homages to African and African-American music, as perpetuation of the "savage African" stereotype, or as both. DuBois, before reading and praising "the Golden-Faced People," wrote in a review of Lindsay's "Booker T. Washington Trilogy" that "Lindsay knows two things, and two things only, about Negroes: The beautiful rhythm of their music and the ugly side of their drunkards and outcasts. From this poverty of material he tries now and then to make a contribution to Negro literature." DuBois also criticized "The Congo," which has been the most persistent focus of the criticisms of racial stereotyping in Lindsay's work.
Subtitled "A Study of the Negro Race" and beginning with a section titled "Their Basic Savagery", "The Congo" reflects the tensions within a relatively isolated and pastoral society suddenly confronted by the industrialized world. The poem was inspired by a sermon preached in October 1913 that detailed the drowning of a missionary in the Congo River
; this event had drawn worldwide criticism, as had the colonial exploitation of the Congo under the government of Leopold II of Belgium
. Lindsay defended the poem; in a letter to Joel Spingarn, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP, Lindsay wrote that "My 'Congo' and 'Booker T. Washington Trilogy' have both been denounced by the Colored people for reasons that I cannot fathom....The third section of 'The Congo' is certainly as hopeful as any human being dare to be in regard to any race." Spingarn responded by acknowledging Lindsay's good intentions, but saying that Lindsay sometimes glamorized differences between people of African descent and people of other races, while many African-Americans wished to emphasize the "feelings and desires" that they held in common with others.
Similarly, critics in academia often portray Lindsay as a well-meaning but misguided primitivist
in his representations of Africans and African Americans. One such critic, Rachel DuPlessis, argues that the poem, while perhaps meant to be "hopeful," actually "others" Africans as an inherently violent race. In the poem and in Lindsays's defenses of it, DuPlessis hears Lindsay warning white readers not to be "hoo-doo'd" or seduced by violent African "mumbo jumbo." This warning seems to suggest that white civilization has been "infected" by African violence; Lindsay thus, in effect, "blames blacks for white violence directed against them." Conversely, Susan Gubar
notes approvingly that "the poem contains lines blaming black violence on white imperialism." While acknowledging that the poem seems to have given its author and audiences an excuse to indulge in "'romantic racism
' or 'slumming in slang,'" she also observes that Lindsay was "much more liberal than many of his poetic contemporaries," and that he seems to have intended a statement against the kind of racist violence perpetrated under Leopold in the Congo.
showcased him with two other Illinois poets — Carl Sandburg
and Edgar Lee Masters
— his name became linked to theirs. The success of either of the other two, in turn, seemed to help the third.
Edgar Lee Masters
published a biography of Lindsay in 1935 (four years after its subject's death) entitled 'Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America'.
Lindsay himself indicated in the 1915 preface to "The Congo" that no less a figure than William Butler Yeats
respected his work. Yeats felt they shared a concern for capturing the sound of the primitive and of singing in poetry. In 1915, Lindsay gave a poetry reading to President Woodrow Wilson
and the entire Cabinet
.
Lindsay was well known throughout the nation, and especially in Illinois, because of his travels which were sometimes recorded on the front page of every newspaper.
In 1924 he moved to Spokane, Washington
, where he lived in room 1129 of the Davenport Hotel until 1929. On May 19, 1925, he married the 23-year-old Elizabeth Connor. The 45-year-old poet at this point found himself under great economic pressure, due at least in part to the new need to support his considerably younger wife. These financial worries escalated even more when in May 1926 the Lindsays had a daughter, Susan Doniphan Lindsay, and in September 1927 a son, Nicholas Cave Lindsay.
Desperate for money to meet the growing demands of his growing family, Lindsay undertook an exhausting string of readings throughout the East
and Midwest
that lasted from October 1928 through March 1929. During this time, Poetry magazine awarded him a lifetime achievement award of $500 (a substantial sum at the time).
After this tour, in April 1929, Lindsay and his family moved to the house of his birth in Springfield, Illinois: an expensive undertaking. In that same year, and coinciding with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Lindsay published two more books of poems: The Litany of Washington Street and Every Soul A Circus.
He gained money by doing odd jobs throughout, but in general earned very little during his travels.
, and on December 5, 1931, committed suicide by drinking a bottle of lye
. His last words were, "They tried to get me — I got them first!"
Today, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
helps to maintain the Vachel Lindsay House
at 603 South Fifth Street in Springfield, the site of Lindsay's birth and death. The agency has donated the home to the state which then closed it to restore the home at a cost of $1.5 million. The site is now again open to the public giving full, guided tours for those who choose to ring the bell. The hours are Tues-Sat: 12-4:00pm. Lindsay's grave lies in Oak Ridge Cemetery
. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College
holds a collection of his papers.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He is considered the father of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted. His extensive correspondence with the poet Yeats
Yeats
W. B. Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright.Yeats may also refer to:* Yeats ,* Yeats , an impact crater on Mercury* Yeats , an Irish thoroughbred racehorse-See also:...
details his intentions to revive the musical qualities in poetry as had been practiced by the ancient Greeks.
Because of his identity as a performance artist and his use of American Midwest themes, Lindsay became known in the 1910s as the "Prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
Troubador." For the final twenty years of his life, Lindsay was one of the best-known poets in America. His reputation was high enough to enable him to befriend, encourage, and mentor other poets, such as Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
and Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale , was an American lyrical poet. She was born Sara Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and after her marriage in 1914 she went by the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger.-Biography:...
. However, his poetry lacked elements that encouraged the attention of academic scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
, and after his death he became an obscure figure.
Early years
Lindsay was born in Springfield, IllinoisSpringfield, Illinois
Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
, where his father — Vachel Thomas Lindsay — worked as a medical doctor and had considerable financial resources. As a result, the Lindsays lived next door to the Illinois Executive Mansion
Illinois Executive Mansion
The Illinois Executive Mansion is the official residence of the Governor of Illinois. It is located at 410 E. Jackson Street in Springfield, Illinois and is open to tours on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, free of charge. The Georgian style Mansion was designed by Chicago architect John M....
, home of the Governor of Illinois
Governor of Illinois
The Governor of Illinois is the chief executive of the State of Illinois and the various agencies and departments over which the officer has jurisdiction, as prescribed in the state constitution. It is a directly elected position, votes being cast by popular suffrage of residents of the state....
. This location of his childhood home had its influence on Lindsay, and one of his poems, "The Eagle Forgotten", eulogizes Illinois governor John P. Altgeld, whom Lindsay admired for his courage in pardoning the anarchists involved in the Haymarket Affair
Haymarket affair
The Haymarket affair was a demonstration and unrest that took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting...
— despite the strong protests of US President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
.
Growing up in Springfield influenced Lindsay in other ways as well, as evidenced in such poems as "On the Building of Springfield" and culminating in poems praising Springfield's most famous resident, Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. In "Lincoln", Lindsay exclaims "Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all!" In his 1914 poem "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (In Springfield, Illinois)", Lindsay specifically places Lincoln 'in' Springfield, with the poem opening:
- It is portentous, and a thing of state
- That here at midnight, in our little town
- A mourning figure walks, and will not rest...
Lindsay studied medicine at Hiram College
Hiram College
Hiram College is a private liberal arts college located in Hiram, Ohio. Founded by Amos Sutton Hayden of the Disciples of Christ Church in 1850, the institution has, since its first days, been nonsectarian and coeducational, and throughout its existence Hiram College has sustained this egalitarian...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
from 1897 to 1900, but he did not want to be a doctor. His parents pressured him toward medicine. One day Vachel wrote home to his parents saying that he wasn't meant to be a doctor and that his true living should be that of a painter. His parents wrote back saying that doctors can draw pictures in their free time. Leaving Hiram, he thought he would become an artist, and went to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
to study at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
from 1900 to 1903. In 1904 he left to attend the New York School of Art (now The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
) to study pen and ink. Lindsay remained interested in art for the rest of his life, drawing illustrations for some of his poetry. His art studies also probably led him to appreciate the new art form of silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
, on which he wrote a book in 1915: The Art of the Moving Picture, generally considered the first book of film criticism, according to critic Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann is an American author, editor, and critic of film and theatre. He has written for The New Republic since 1958 and currently contributes film criticism to that magazine....
, discussing Lindsay in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism is a 2009 documentary film dramatizing a hundred years of American film criticism through film clips, historic photographs, and on-camera interviews with many of today’s important reviewers, mostly print but also Internet...
.
Beginnings as a poet
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
.
From March to May, 1906, Lindsay traveled roughly 600 miles on foot from Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
to Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, again trading his poetry for food and lodging. From April to May, 1908, Lindsay undertook another poetry-selling trek, walking from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to Hiram, Ohio
Hiram, Ohio
Hiram is a village in Portage County, Ohio, United States. It was formed from portions of Hiram Township in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The population was 1,242 at the 2000 census...
.
From May to September 1912 he traveled — again on foot — from Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
to New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, trading his poems for food and lodging. During this last trek, Lindsay composed his most famous poem, "The Congo". On his return, Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts. She is best known as the founding publisher and long-time editor of Poetry Magazine, which made its debut in 1912. As a supporter of the poets Ezra Pound, H. D., T. S...
published in Poetry magazine first his poem "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" in 1913 and then "The Congo" in 1914. At this point, Lindsay became very well known.
Poetry as performance
Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing. Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, Boom... |
| The Congo |
Unlike Lindsay’s more purely intellectual contemporaries, the poet declaimed his works from the stage, complete with the extravagant gestures of a carnival barker and old time preacher, from the beginning declaring himself to be a product of what he termed ‘Higher Vaudeville’:
“I think that my first poetic impulse is for music; second a definite conception with the ring of the universe…” (Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters 1935, page 62) This is evidenced by the 1931 recording he made just before his suicide, his still-radical performances of ‘The Mysterious Cat’, ‘The Flower-Fed Buffaloes’ and parts of ‘The Congo’ exhibiting a fiery and furious, zany, at times incoherent delivery that appears to have owed more to jazz than poetry, though the highly religious Lindsay was always reluctant to align himself thus. Nevertheless, part of the success and great fame that Lindsay achieved — albeit briefly — was due to the singular manner in which he presented his poetry "fundamentally as a performance, as an aural and temporal experience...meant...to be chanted, whispered, belted out, sung, amplified by gesticulation and movement, and punctuated by shouts and whoops." [2]
His best-known poem, "The Congo," exemplified his revolutionary aesthetic of sound for sound's sake. It imitates the pounding of the drums in the rhythms and in onomotopeic nonsense words. At parts, the poem ceases to use conventional words when representing the chants of Congo's indigenous people, relying just on sound alone.
Attitudes towards race
Most contemporaries acknowledged Lindsay's intention to be an advocate for African-Americans. This intention was particularly evident in the 1918 poem "The Jazz Birds", praising the war efforts of African-Americans during World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, an issue to which the vast majority of white America seemed blind. Additionally, W.E.B. Du Bois
W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois attended Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate...
hailed Lindsay's story "The Golden-Faced People" for its insights into racism. Lindsay saw himself as anti-racist not only in his own writing but in his encouragement of a writer; he credited himself with discovering Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, who, while working as a busboy at a Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
restaurant where Lindsay ate, gave Lindsay copies of his poems.
However, many contemporaries and later critics have contended over whether a couple of Lindsay's poems should be seen as homages to African and African-American music, as perpetuation of the "savage African" stereotype, or as both. DuBois, before reading and praising "the Golden-Faced People," wrote in a review of Lindsay's "Booker T. Washington Trilogy" that "Lindsay knows two things, and two things only, about Negroes: The beautiful rhythm of their music and the ugly side of their drunkards and outcasts. From this poverty of material he tries now and then to make a contribution to Negro literature." DuBois also criticized "The Congo," which has been the most persistent focus of the criticisms of racial stereotyping in Lindsay's work.
Subtitled "A Study of the Negro Race" and beginning with a section titled "Their Basic Savagery", "The Congo" reflects the tensions within a relatively isolated and pastoral society suddenly confronted by the industrialized world. The poem was inspired by a sermon preached in October 1913 that detailed the drowning of a missionary in the Congo River
Congo River
The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...
; this event had drawn worldwide criticism, as had the colonial exploitation of the Congo under the government of Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians. Born in Brussels the second son of Leopold I and Louise-Marie of Orléans, he succeeded his father to the throne on 17 December 1865 and remained king until his death.Leopold is chiefly remembered as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free...
. Lindsay defended the poem; in a letter to Joel Spingarn, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP, Lindsay wrote that "My 'Congo' and 'Booker T. Washington Trilogy' have both been denounced by the Colored people for reasons that I cannot fathom....The third section of 'The Congo' is certainly as hopeful as any human being dare to be in regard to any race." Spingarn responded by acknowledging Lindsay's good intentions, but saying that Lindsay sometimes glamorized differences between people of African descent and people of other races, while many African-Americans wished to emphasize the "feelings and desires" that they held in common with others.
Similarly, critics in academia often portray Lindsay as a well-meaning but misguided primitivist
Primitivism
Primitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
in his representations of Africans and African Americans. One such critic, Rachel DuPlessis, argues that the poem, while perhaps meant to be "hopeful," actually "others" Africans as an inherently violent race. In the poem and in Lindsays's defenses of it, DuPlessis hears Lindsay warning white readers not to be "hoo-doo'd" or seduced by violent African "mumbo jumbo." This warning seems to suggest that white civilization has been "infected" by African violence; Lindsay thus, in effect, "blames blacks for white violence directed against them." Conversely, Susan Gubar
Susan Gubar
Dr. Susan D. Gubar is an American academic and Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University. She is co-author with Dr. Sandra M. Gilbert of the standard feminist text, The Madwoman in the Attic and a trilogy on women's writing in the twentieth century.Her book...
notes approvingly that "the poem contains lines blaming black violence on white imperialism." While acknowledging that the poem seems to have given its author and audiences an excuse to indulge in "'romantic racism
Romantic racism
Romantic racism is a form of racism in which members of a dominant group purportedly project their fantasies onto members of oppressed groups. Feminist scholars have accused Norman Mailer, Jack Kerouac, and other Beatnik authors of the 1950s of romantic racism...
' or 'slumming in slang,'" she also observes that Lindsay was "much more liberal than many of his poetic contemporaries," and that he seems to have intended a statement against the kind of racist violence perpetrated under Leopold in the Congo.
Fame
Lindsay's fame as a poet grew in the 1910s. Because Harriet MonroeHarriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet and patron of the arts. She is best known as the founding publisher and long-time editor of Poetry Magazine, which made its debut in 1912. As a supporter of the poets Ezra Pound, H. D., T. S...
showcased him with two other Illinois poets — Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
and Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...
— his name became linked to theirs. The success of either of the other two, in turn, seemed to help the third.
Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...
published a biography of Lindsay in 1935 (four years after its subject's death) entitled 'Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America'.
Lindsay himself indicated in the 1915 preface to "The Congo" that no less a figure than William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
respected his work. Yeats felt they shared a concern for capturing the sound of the primitive and of singing in poetry. In 1915, Lindsay gave a poetry reading to President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
and the entire Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
.
Lindsay was well known throughout the nation, and especially in Illinois, because of his travels which were sometimes recorded on the front page of every newspaper.
Marriage, children and financial troubles
Despite his fame, Lindsay's private life featured many disappointments, such as his unsuccessful courtship in 1914 of fellow poet Sara Teasdale; she married a rich businessman, Ernst Filsinger. While this itself may have caused Lindsay to become more concerned with money, his financial pressures increased even more later on.In 1924 he moved to Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
, where he lived in room 1129 of the Davenport Hotel until 1929. On May 19, 1925, he married the 23-year-old Elizabeth Connor. The 45-year-old poet at this point found himself under great economic pressure, due at least in part to the new need to support his considerably younger wife. These financial worries escalated even more when in May 1926 the Lindsays had a daughter, Susan Doniphan Lindsay, and in September 1927 a son, Nicholas Cave Lindsay.
Desperate for money to meet the growing demands of his growing family, Lindsay undertook an exhausting string of readings throughout the East
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, the American East, or simply the East is traditionally defined as the states east of the Mississippi River. The first two tiers of states west of the Mississippi have traditionally been considered part of the West, but can be included in the East today; usually in...
and Midwest
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
that lasted from October 1928 through March 1929. During this time, Poetry magazine awarded him a lifetime achievement award of $500 (a substantial sum at the time).
After this tour, in April 1929, Lindsay and his family moved to the house of his birth in Springfield, Illinois: an expensive undertaking. In that same year, and coinciding with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Lindsay published two more books of poems: The Litany of Washington Street and Every Soul A Circus.
He gained money by doing odd jobs throughout, but in general earned very little during his travels.
Suicide
Crushed by financial worry and in failing health from his six-month road trip, Lindsay sank into depressionDepression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, and on December 5, 1931, committed suicide by drinking a bottle of lye
Lye
Lye is a corrosive alkaline substance, commonly sodium hydroxide or historically potassium hydroxide . Previously, lye was among the many different alkalis leached from hardwood ashes...
. His last words were, "They tried to get me — I got them first!"
Today, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois. It is tasked with the duty of maintaining most State-owned historic sites within Illinois, and maximizing their educational and recreational value to visitors....
helps to maintain the Vachel Lindsay House
Vachel Lindsay House
Vachel Lindsay House was the birthplace and home of poet Vachel Lindsay. The Greek Revival house was constructed in 1879 and is located in Springfield, Illinois. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971....
at 603 South Fifth Street in Springfield, the site of Lindsay's birth and death. The agency has donated the home to the state which then closed it to restore the home at a cost of $1.5 million. The site is now again open to the public giving full, guided tours for those who choose to ring the bell. The hours are Tues-Sat: 12-4:00pm. Lindsay's grave lies in Oak Ridge Cemetery
Oak Ridge Cemetery
Oak Ridge Cemetery is a cemetery located in Springfield, Illinois in the United States.Lincoln's Tomb, which serves as the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln, his wife and all but one of his children, is located at Oak Ridge...
. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
holds a collection of his papers.
Selected works
- "Abraham Lincoln Walks at MidnightAbraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight" is a 1914 poem by American poet Vachel Lindsay. It portrays Abraham Lincoln walking the streets of Springfield, Illinois, stirred from his eternal sleep, a man, who even in death, is burdened by the tragedies of the modern world. At the time this poem was...
" - "An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie"
- "A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign"
- "A Sense of Humor"
- "Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, BryanBryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan"Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan" is a 1919 poem by American poet Vachel Lindsay. It chronicles William Jennings Bryan's 1896 presidential campaign as seen through the eyes of an idealistic sixteen-year-old, who strongly supported the Democratic Party candidate and was crushed by Bryan's defeat at the...
" - "The Dandelion"
- "Drying Their Wings"
- "EuclidEuclidEuclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...
" - "Factory Windows are Always Broken"
- "The Flower-Fed BuffaloesAmerican BisonThe American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
" - "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven"-the American Classical Composer Charles IvesCharles IvesCharles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
would write music to this poem (with a couple of additional text alterations) shortly after its publication - "In Praise of Johnny AppleseedJohnny AppleseedJohnny Appleseed , born John Chapman, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois...
" - "The Kallyope Yell" — see calliopeCalliope (music)A calliope is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or more recently compressed air, through large whistles, originally locomotive whistles....
for references - "The Leaden-Eyed"
- "Love and Law"
- "The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son"
- "On the Garden Wall"
- "The Prairie Battlements"
- The Golden Book of SpringfieldThe Golden Book of SpringfieldThe Golden Book of Springfield is a 1920 novel by American poet Vachel Lindsay. It is the only novel written by Lindsay. Classified as a work of utopian fiction, The Golden Book of Springfield details life in Springfield, Illinois in the distant year 2018, a time when residents of the city are...
- "Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" "
- "The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race"
- "The Eagle That is Forgotten"
- "The Firemen's Ball"
- "The Rose of Midnight"
- "This Section is a Christmas Tree"
- "To Gloriana"
- "What SemiramisSemiramisThe real and historical Shammuramat , was the Assyrian queen of Shamshi-Adad V , King of Assyria and ruler of the Neo Assyrian Empire, and its regent for four years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age....
Said" - "What the Ghost of the Gambler Said"
- "Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket"
- "Written for a Musician"
External links
- "The Chinese Nightingale"
- "The Congo and Other Poems by Vachel Lindsay"
- "Modern American Poetry: Vachel Lindsay"
- Profile of Vachel Linsay from PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
's "I Hear America Singing" program, hosted by Thomas Hampson - Entry on Vachel Lindsay from Anthology of Modern American Poetry
- LibrivoxLibriVoxLibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers and is probably, since 2007, the world's most prolific audiobook publisher...
audio recordings of Vachel Lindsay works - Vachel Lindsay Collection, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections