THE CONGO; And Other Poems By Vachel Lindsay / With an Introduction by Harriet Monroe

Lindsay, Vachel

Published by The Macmillan Company, New York, 1922

About this Item

INSCRIBED / SIGNED & DATED with an ORIGINAL POEM, "AN ODE TO A ROOKWOOD VASE" & ILLUSTRATION (possibly unpublished) by the poet-artist Vachel Lindsay; small 8vo (7 5/8" x 5 1/4"); brown pictorial cloth with gold lettering & Art Deco heraldic "Thunderbird" design on spine + elaborately decorated front cover with facing "dragons" at top - framing deco borders - below: "Thunderbird" red-&-black escutcheon; Introduction by Harriet Monroe; xv, [xvi] + 159 pages. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879 - 1931) was an American poet some called the "Prairie Troubador." He is considered a founder of modern "singing poetry", in which verses were meant to be sung or chanted--sometimes with musical accompanyment. He strove to revive poetry within its oral tradition and as a way to bring Midwestern and other communities together. Lindsay hoped to be seen as a "bard, ballad singer, troubadour." The poet's fame grew during the 1910-20's--the War Years and Jazz Age--after Harriet Monroe, prominent editor of "Poetry" magazine, praised and published him with two other Illinois poets--Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters. Years later to memorialize his deceased fellow-poet, Masters' would write a eulogizing biography entitled, Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America (1935). As a travelling bard, Lindsay often engaged in dramatic recitals. Among his most popular poems were "The Santa Fe Trail," "General William Booth [of the Salvation Army] Enters into Heaven," "Johnny Appleseed," the "Booker Washington Trilogy," and "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight." "The Congo" became a highly popular best-seller. Like other poems, it has been set to music. Lindsay's poems have inspired such composers as Charles Ives and Sidney Homer to Norman Dello Joio and Jake Heggie. "He composed his most famous poem 'The Congo' while he traveled on foot from Illinois to New Mexico, exemplified his revolutionary aesthetic of sound for sound's sake. The poem was inspired by a sermon preached in October 1913 that detailed the drowning of a missionary in the Congo River. It imitates the pounding of the drums in the rhythms and in onomatopoeic 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."--Best Poems Encyclopedia According to The Poetry Foundation: "One of Lindsay's most famous poems, the title piece has a rhythmic structure based on African-American speech rhythms and jazz. He recited the poem in a variety of voices ranging from a loud, deep bass to a whisper. A Springfield Republican reviewer saw the publication of "The Congo" and Other Poems as the single most interesting event in the American literary scene. "All in all there is an intense and vivid Americanism in these poems-a racy, pungent, authentic note, which, if he fulfills the last measure of his [artistic] promise, will make Mr. Lindsay a prophet of American life," the reviewer explained. Black writers and intellectuals of the period were less sanguine about Lindsay's attempts at prophecy. W.E.B. DuBois, remarking on Lindsay's work in Poetry magazine, declared "Mr. Vachel 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. It goes without saying that he only partly succeeds." Against aspersions of racial insensitivity, one rebuts that Lindsay--the son of a Union surgeon and profound admirer of President Lincoln--was appalled by lynchings of blacks in Springfield, Illinois, and spoke out against such racist brutality in "The City That Will Not Repent." Deeply troubled, he also delivered "Ten Lectures" on ethnicity at the local Y.M.C.A. Note, too, that Langston Hughes was influenced by Lindsay's poetry, which trumpeted Emersonian and Whitmanesque patriotic values, a "Gospel of Beauty," and the romantic love of nature. In addition to s.

Seller Inventory # 9031

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE CONGO; And Other Poems By Vachel Lindsay / With an Introduction by Harriet Monroe
• Publisher: The Macmillan Company, New York
• Publication Date: 1922
• Binding: Pictorial cloth
• Illustrator: Vachel Lindsay
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)