By Madison S. Hughes (12.16.2009)

While enrolled as a student in a graduate Poetry class, I was pleasantly surprised to find many peculiar, and fascinating aspects to modern American poetry. To begin with, I had a huge misconception of American poets as a whole. I was under the impression that American poets would not be anywhere near the caliber of their European counterparts. What I found was that not only were they, dare I say, probably some of the best poets in all of history, but additionally, the historical time frame of which they were part concerning class, race and politics was absolutely fascinating. My goal in this paper is to dispel some of the misconceptions others may have concerning American poets, and share some of the fascinating history of their time.To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four main sections. In the first section, I provide a CHRONOLOGY of modern American poetry to show where it falls on the historical timeline. In the second section, I discuss CLASS struggle in modern American poetry. In the third section I discuss RACE in modern American poetry. Finally, in the fourth section I write about POLITICS of modern American poetry.

CHRONOLOGY

Let’s begin with some agreement on nomenclature, if you will. For the purposes of this paper we will interpret Modern to mean Modernism. Once we establish that, periods of literature—which include poetry—start popping into our heads, e.g., Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Romanticism, Modernism, Postmodernism, etc. We will concern ourselves with, and define the period of Modernism, to see where it fits in the scheme of literature.

When did it begin? Well, that depends on whom you ask. As I embark on my sojourn with poetry, I have yet to receive a clear-cut, authoritative answer to what seems to be the quintessential question of what exactly defines the period of modern American poetry. As with most defined periods of history, there does not seem to be a distinctive beginning. However, there seems to be a general consensus within about a decade.

Let us begin with what I was told in my graduate poetry class. As we find ourselves at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, I was told that it is still up for debate, but the general accord is that Modern American Poetry starts in the first decade of the twentieth-century. A century later, and that is still up for debate.

In a poetry.org article titled, A Brief Guide to Modernism, the author states, “The English novelist Virginia Woolf declared that human nature underwent a fundamental change “on or about December 1910.” The statement testifies to the modern writer’s fervent desire to break with the past, rejecting literary traditions that seemed outmoded and diction that seemed too genteel to suit an era of technological breakthroughs and global violence.”

So now we have two professionals, a professor and an English novelist, who claim that modern American poetry began in the first decade of the twentieth century. For my part, it is my personal opinion that the beginning should coincide with the beginning of WWI, “the great war”—what an idiotic adjective to describe a war—in 1914, but I shall yield to the professionals, and agree to the first decade of the twentieth century.

When did it end? I am reminded of Herman’s Hermits in their famous song, I’m Henry the VIII, where the lyrics state “second verse same as the first.” It seems apropos when answering this question by referring to the answer of the previous question, When did it begin?

Again, one would be hard-pressed to get a definitive answer to this question either. However, it does seem generally agreed upon that the end of the period of modern American poetry coincides with the end of WWII, “the just war”—another idiotic adjective with which to describe a war—in 1945. I am in agreement with the general consensus of WWII being the defining end of the period of modern American poetry.

In a news release titled, Make It New: The Rise of Modernism, on the Ransom Center Website, that claims to advance the study of the arts and humanities, the author penned the following:

Modernism, which flourished from the 1890s to 1939, arose from a set of occurrences—cultural, scientific and material—that changed the nature of modern life. Modernism altered perceptions while capturing the imagination of patrons and publishers and worrying the stalwarts of the establishment. Some of its more flamboyant creations intrigued, frustrated, inspired and even enraged the public.

This expresses nicely the occurrences that changed the nature of modern life, and it also shows further disagreement of the beginning and end of modern American poetry.

Modernist writing was founded on the principle of irony e.g., Browning, and Thomas Hardy. Thomas Hardy’s last novel, before continuing his long career as a poet, Jude the Obscure, was not well received. As a mater of fact it was publicly burned because of its modernization of thought, pessimism, and anti-religion. It had a deep sense of irony. After the Battle of the Somme, considered the bloodiest military operation ever recorded, between 01 July and 18 November 1916, there was no more love poetry.

The Website EDSITEment.neh.gov describes modernism as follows:

The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War One period. The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with ‘the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.’ rejecting nineteenth-century optimism, [modernists] presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray.

Below is an excellent table from the same Website that depicts some aspects of Modernism.

Table 1

Pre-Modern World (e.g., Romantic, Victorian Periods)

Ordered
Meaningful
Optimistic
Stable
Faith
Morality/Values
Clear Sense of Identity

Modern World (early 20th century)

Chaos
Futile
Pessimistic
Unstable
Loss of Faith
Collapse of Morality/Values
Confused Sense of Identity and Place in World

Source: United States, National Endowment for the Humanities. EDSITEment. Aspects of Modernism chart; US National Endowment for the Humanities; Web; 16 Dec. 2009.

So there we have it, a chronology of modern American poetry beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, and culminating at the end of WWII. That was a bit arduous, but what follows was not contemplated without much trepidation. Initially I was going to speak solely of politics, then I thought—no maybe I will write about class in modern American poetry. Then I was reading some of Langston Hughes’s outstanding work and considered—maybe I will write of race in modern American poetry. I decided that neither was more important than the others, so we shall discuss each.

CLASS

Class issues have always been of interest to me. If I had to write of only one issue, class would be that issue. I do not consider race, or politics to be of any less a concern, but I believe that they are a result of class struggles. A majority of races of the minority are in the oppressed class. Politics is a constant struggle between the oppressors, which control political power, and the oppressed that do not. Race and politics are nothing less than the visible spill that distracts from the faulty faucet of class inequality. So we, as a species, continue to wipe up the spills, but never attempt to fix the faucet. When one attempts to fix the faucet, as did Karl Marx, the oppressors demonize them.

A little known fact about Karl Marx is that he did write some verse that may be found under the title of Young Marx Writings from Karl Marx before Rheinsche Zeitung. Some of his verse is rather good. It may be found at the web address located on the works cited page.

A contemporary poet in Minneapolis, Minnesota by the name of Lyle Daggett, writes on his blog that “the most important literary movement in the United States in the 20th century was the Proletarian literature movement, which was at its most active and took its most cohesive shape during the 1930’s, though it existed prior to those years and has remained alive since.” I could not agree more. As I mentioned earlier, if I had to write of only one issue, class would be that issue, and if forced to write of one decade, the 1930s would be that decade.

Lyle Daggett lists “Muriel Rukeyser, Langston Hughes, Meridel LeSueur, Kenneth Fearing, Margaret Walker, Kenneth Patchen, Joseph Kalar, Sol Funaroff, Ruth Lechlitner, Joy Davidman, Norman Rosten, John Beecher, Genevieve Taggard, Josephine W. Johnson, [and] Lola Ridge” as some of the poets of the Proletarian literature movement.

In Joseph Freeman’s Introduction to Proletarian Literature in the United States, he writes, “During the first two decades of the [twentieth] century, American revolutionary writers were influenced by or directly affiliated with the Socialist Party or the [Industrial Workers of the World] (IWW). In the third decade, they moved in the orbit of the Communist Party which emerged as the political vanguard of the workers.”

I imagine that many contemporary Americans believe that Marx’s epic works about class struggles of the nineteenth century are a thing of the past. However, I would beg to differ. Joseph Freeman’s Introduction to Proletarian Literature in the United States written in 1935 could, quite remarkably, describe contemporary socio-economics. One could only hope that contemporary writers begin to write with the fervor of writers in the 1930s.

Often the writer who describes the contemporary world from the viewpoint of the proletariat is not himself a worker. War, unemployment, a widespread social-economic crisis drive middle-class writers into the ranks of the proletariat. Their experience becomes contiguous to or identical with that of the working class; they see their former life, and the life of everyone around them with new eyes; their grasp of experience is conditioned by the class to which they have now attached themselves; they write from the viewpoint of the revolutionary proletariat; they create what is called proletarian literature.

As the renowned historian Howard Zinn repeatedly says, “change comes from the bottom up, not the top down.”

RACE

When one thinks of black American life, and race relations of modern American poetry, I am sure, the first thing that pops in one’s head are the black poets of the Harlem Renaissance, or specifically Langston Hughes. Well, one may be surprised to find that many white poets also wrote of race . . . “Nancy Cunard’s massive Negro: An Anthology (1934)—includes a section of forty-eight “Tributary Poems by Non-Negroes” (Nelson 116-7).

Many white poets made attempts to write in dialect. Those that did seemed to have performed a tightrope act where some poems fell on the side of dialectic modesty, and others seemed down right racist. “Yet difficult, provisional distinctions must be made here between those poems in dialect that appear to be significantly compromised by racist associations and those that do not. By the 1920s dialect was already controversial among black poets, since it often seemed a mark of deficiency” (117).

E. E. Cummings epitomizes racist tone in his 1935 jazz poem “ump-A-tum,” (“theys sO alive / (who is / ? niggers))” (118). But not to be outdone, Stanley Kimmel’s “Niggers” offers yet another instance of racism when he penned: (“Do da white people have fun? / No, child, dey’s too dignified”) (119).

“On the other hand, the rather modest dialect poems in Sol Funaroff’s posthumous Exile From a Future Time (1943) represent efforts to honor the ironic realism of an oppressed race: “Yes, I’m standin on the corner, speakin my mind, / Next thing I know I’m on the chain gang line” (118).

E. E. Cummings and Stanley Kimmel’s poems clearly fall on the racist side of the tightrope, while Sol Funaroff’s poem falls on the sympathetic side of the tightrope. Whether or not Lucia Trent’s 1929 poem, “Black Men,” falls or balances will be left to the reader. It paints a vivid picture of lynching: “Tonight the earth is leper-pale and still; / The moon lies like a tombstone in the sky. / Three black men sway upon a lonely hill” (119). While I can’t speak for the reader, for me, that poem left a mark.

Langston Hughes’s poem, I, too, sing America, demonstrates the plight of racism from the perspective of an African-American.

“I, too, sing America”

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

My absolute favorite of all poems concerning racism was “Countee Cullen’s (1903-1946) “Incident” (1925)—a widely known poem by a poet generally viewed as relatively minor because of his preference for traditional forms—describes a black child’s encounter with a Maryland resident” (23). It reads as follows:

“Incident”

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That’s all that I remember.

Although it was not listed on Table 1—Aspects of Modernism chart. It must be known that one of the primary distinctions of the break from Victorian poetry to modern American poetry was its break from traditional forms.

Albeit many have made valiant attempts to eradicate racism through verse, prose, lyric, activism, and other means, I can’t help but feel pessimistic—especially in the United States—on the eradication of racism here in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Born and raised in the Deep South, I have lived a life as a voyeur of racism. One would think that since I was raised in the late 60s and 70s, racism would have diminished, but in actuality, I am afraid it has not. In fact, I believe that it is on the rise in contemporary America.

The contemporary Republican Party has successfully resurrected the specter of deep racism. I have no doubt that Nixon is very proud of them as he looks up from his, rather warm, eternal residence. It is quite remarkable—but certainly not surprising—to see how the base of the Republican Party is concentrated in the Deep South and Appalachia. That is now, but let’s take a look at the politics in modern American poetry.

POLITICS

Since the U. S. presidential election was stolen in 2000, contemporary politics has been quite fascinating—although very disappointing. But if one were to agree that to be true, they would equally be fascinated with politics during the years of modern American poetry, especially the 1930s. Personally, I find the 1930s protest and proletariat poetry to be the most exiting poetry of all modern American poetry.

But before we go back to modern American poetry, I would like to share with you a contemporary political poem that I find extraordinary. I found it on the Web site http://www.bannedmagazine.com. An African American activist and artist named Alexis Monique Escalante wrote the poem. She “believes that the call for justice and equality is one that can be best expressed through art and poetry and is sharing this vision with the rest of the world.” It is titled An Inside Job, and reads as follows:

“An Inside Job”

Resolve. Resolve. Resolve

Has anyone ever told you that you can be confident

and wrong?

You can be focused

and wrong.

You can claim Christianity

and be wrong.

That perhaps your C average only prepared

you to rub the RIGHT elbows and attend

2000-dollar-a-plate

dinners,

while the mother who clears those linen tablecloths

cannot afford health insurance for the child

who latches at her hanging

breast.

Yale did not teach compassion.

Harvard did not teach humility.

You say you have your daddy’s eyes-

and so did Karla Fae Tucker. Her right to life was denied

with the stroke of your pen

151 other souls murdered

and it was an inside job.

You on your knees in churches-

Their family on their knees

in front of caskets.

Your right to life and happiness does not extend to all born:

Born into poverty, born

out of wedlock, born

gay, lesbian, bisexual, born

in Mexico but who came

here in search of a better life, born

to pick tomatoes and work

for the very companies that lobby in your favor, born

woman, born

earth loving.

Give me your propaganda

and I roll, smoke, and pass the spliff around

You can keep your rhetoric designed to make me hate

my Iraqi sisters and brothers born,

my non-Christian born,

non-heterosexual born,

my poor sisters and brothers…

and if Jesus is not a sexy, dark, queer, hippie, free-lovin, sort of Jew,

then you can keep him too.

This impressed me because I recently asked my modern American poetry professor, “Where are the contemporary poets that are fighting for injustices today?” He replied by saying they are out there. Well, what I found was that, in fact, they are out there, but one must actively seek them. As you can see, it is well worth the effort to seek out those contemporary poets. So now let’s travel back in time to the 1930s.

Political poetry flourished “in important subcultures and in the moments of national crisis before it came to full fruition in the Harlem Renaissance and in the widely politicized 1930s” (21). Because of conservative suppression—what a shock—one has to dig deep to find a lot of the political poetry of modern American poetry. If one were so inclined, one would be remiss if they did not start with Cary Nelson. He is in the process of recovering some of those lost nuggets of gold; and there are few with more knowledge of modern American poetry than he.

A politically ingenious way on how a political party of modern American poetry time communicated with its members was through a publication named The Daily Worker. The Daily Worker was the official newspaper of the Communist party. “Since the newspaper was a daily publication, its editors had the opportunity to solicit and rapidly publish poetry that was closely tied to particular events and interests” (207). I just had a vision of Fox News viewers getting their information through the written word, let alone that word being verse, but I digress.

“Drawing on practices set by the IWW newspapers in the second decade, The Daily Worker published poems about union organizing and workers suffering throughout its history. It also regularly renewed the IWW tradition of using poetry as an effective medium of satire” (207). Currently we have no such thing, but at least we have Jon Stewart.

One would have to write volumes to properly depict the effect Communism had on modern American poetry. Since I am limited by time, and space, I would like to leave you with three excellent sources of recommended reading. Start with Irving Howe and Lewis Coser’s The American Communist Party: A Critical History, 1919-1957 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). You could then supplement that with Harvey Klehr’s The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade (New York: Basic Books, 1984). Finally, you could cap it off with Lawrence H. Schwartz’s Marxism and Culture: The CPUSA and Aesthetics in the 1930s.

CONCLUSION

Poetry is a powerful medium in which to communicate thought. Contemporarily we live in a culture that has declined from the middlebrows of the 1950s to, I dare say, lowbrows of the twenty-first century. Oh yea, one could argue that we know more now than we ever did in the past, but one would be confusing information with knowledge.

Modern American poetry is a fascinating study. As we have shown, it speaks of race, class, and politics just to name a few of such topics of concern. Poetry has an indefinite shelf life. What is written of yesterday holds true today, and will hold true tomorrow. You see, poetry is about life, and although our way of life changes in time, our being does not. One can’t help but wonder why we continue to make the same mistakes over and over. There are no new stories, just new names, and if we do not take heed in what the muses of yesterday had to say, we will continue to be just a new name in the same old story of today.

Works Cited

“A Brief Guide to Modernism.” <Poetry.org>. The Academy of American Poets. Web. 15 Dec. 2009.

“An Inside Job.” <www.bannedmagazine.com/protestpoetry.AnInsideJob.Escalante.htm>. 2007. Web 16 Dec. 2009.

“Aspects of Modernism chart.” <edsitement.neh.gov. EDSITEment>. United States, National Endowment for the Humanities. Web; 16 Dec. 2009.

“Joseph Freeman’s Introduction to Proletarian Literature in the United States.” <www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/freeman/prolit.htm>. 2000. Web 16 Dec. 2009.

“Make It New: The Rise of Modernism”. <hrc.utexas.edu>. The Harry Ransom Center. The University of Texas at Austin. 2003. Web. 16 Dec. 2009.

Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels. Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1. 683-5. Young Marx Writings from Karl Marx before Rheinsche Zeitung. prior to 12 Apr. 1837. Web 16 Dec. 2009.

<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Young_Marx.pdf&gt;

Nelson, Cary. Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Cultural Memory, 1910-1945. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Print.

“Proletarian poetry.” <aburningpatience.blogspot.com>. 06 July 2005. Web 16 Dec 2009.