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Overview
“Seething Nation! Vast & Flowing! Day & Night & Dawn!” Bold, sweeping, investigative, rhapsodic, hilarious, heart-rendering, thought-provoking, Edward Sanders' three-volume, America: A History in Verse uniquely and brilliantly tells "the story of America...a million stranded fabric / woven by billions of hands & minds”. It is by turns angry, wistful, defiant and extremely funny re-inventions of historical and biographical worlds, a highly original mix of chronicle, anecdote, document, reportage, paean and polemic.
Volume 1, 1900-1939 chronicles the birth of the American century through one world war and to the brink of a second. Not since Leaves of Grass has there been such an un-ironic attempt to give voice to “the rhapsody of a great nation / where so many sing without cease / work without halt / shoulder without shudder / to bring the Feather of Justice to every / bell tower, biome & blade of grass / in Graceful America.”
Long may Sanders sing our common song, and long may his America “dwell in peace, freedom & equality / out on its spiraling arm / in the Milky Way.”
Volume 1, 1900-1939 chronicles the birth of the American century through one world war and to the brink of a second. Not since Leaves of Grass has there been such an un-ironic attempt to give voice to “the rhapsody of a great nation / where so many sing without cease / work without halt / shoulder without shudder / to bring the Feather of Justice to every / bell tower, biome & blade of grass / in Graceful America.”
Long may Sanders sing our common song, and long may his America “dwell in peace, freedom & equality / out on its spiraling arm / in the Milky Way.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781574231175 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | David R. Godine, Publisher |
| Publication date: | 12/01/1999 |
| Pages: | 325 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.87(w) x 8.88(h) x 1.15(d) |
About the Author
Edward Sanders wrote his first poem on jail-cell toilet paper after being arrested for protesting the launch of nuclear submarines in 1961. Political protest remains an intrinsic part of his poetic vision to this day. In 1976, Sanders founded Investigative Poetry; the principles of this movement appear most prominently in his History in Verse series.
Sander's signature is an imaginative compression of historical fact into poetic myth; his mode of "compacted history." Angry, wistful, defiant and extremely funny, Sanders' reinventions of historical worlds offer a moving masque of time constructed out of multiple narrative aspects and tones, skillfully and variously implemented by rhetorical techniques of chronicle, anecdote, document, reportage, paean and polemic. "Poetry should again assume responsibility for the description of history", Ed Sanders proclaimed in his momentous 1976 manifesto on Investigative Poetics. Dedicated since then to a "relentless pursuit of data", Sanders has distinguished himself as the historically engaged poet of his generation, the one poet of imagination whose work also brings us an important vision of a world existing outside itself.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
The century began
with the war against Spain
and the grabbing of the Philippines
in '98 & '99
for the issues & secret whispers of destiny
there arrayed
remained with the nation
the next one hundred years.
The gore of th' Civil War
was thirty-five years in the past
& some in America
were shoving for markets and might
The navy in particular was eager to get more ships
surge through sea lanes
patrol more harbors
William McKinley was president since '96
and his forty-year-old
assistant secretary of the navy
one Teddy Roosevelt
had already published afour-volume
Winning of the West
Roosevelt had the high metabolism of a hamster
and part of him always
tried to shove the nation to battle
In '97 he confided to a pal:
"I should welcome almost any war
for I think this country needs one."
(It was a clear synecdoche of Roosevelt's serial aggression:
that is, confusing his own
impulsivity to violence
with the nation's)
Whatever he was
he set a good part of the tone
of the first 20 years.
The nation was already attuned to conquering.
On the Great Plains
'tween '60 & '10
the Indian villages were decimated
by the U.S. Army
so that the railroads,
then the farmers
could grab the best of the land
The Indians were beaten now &
the continent solely seized—
Go West could now be Go to the World
So many had come to America
from so many lands
dissenters, rebellious sons,
stomped-down daughters
yearning for yes
that maybe it was time to assemble
beneath the [flag]
to sail forth more or less unified
to the seas of their progenitors
The USA was filled with debate
Some wanted imperialist expansion
Others opposed foreign colonies
while some just wanted Open Borders
in other nations
so as to grab up resources
and sell stuff back & forth
in a trade-batty frenzy
what Howard Zinn calls
the "peaceful development of free trade"
—a gourd of words with razors inside
for some in power just cannot live
without a little war
to tinge the trade
Didn't everybody do it?
Look at the unseemly invasions of Africa
by the seething nations of Europe
or the graceless droolings of the same
to section ancient China
as if she were a quarter of beef
It was a spectacle
to make a nouveau riche nation
tremble with envy:
England, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands
shoving their way
through the streets
of pliant nations
A War in Cuba
Cuba was discovered by Columbus on his first voyage
Velazquez conquered the isle in 1511
& the Spanish had owned it ever since
In '95 a rebellion began
against a cruel & ruthless, multi-century
Spanish colonial system
and a hated network
of "Friars" that
treated the Cubans like dirt.
Some in the US
thought that the Cuban revolt against Spain
had Holy Freedom aspects of 1776
but other empire-empirical types
such as the young Winston Churchill
wanted Spain to keep control
He'd written an article in the New Republic
that since 2/5 of the Cuban insurgents were black
the result, shudder shudder,
could be "another black republic"
—referring of course to Cuba joining Haiti
the first nation run by blacks in the New World.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans
from the rural areas
were forced into concentration camps
by a general named Valeriano Weyler.
The Hearst & Pulitzer papers
began to shriek at the
Spaniards in Cuba as evil
A new, more liberal regime in Spain came to power in '97
It promised autonomy to the Island
(with Spain still having the ultimate say)
The American consul general in Havana, Fitzhugh Lee,
a promoter of intervention
urged sending the battleship Maine to Havana
to lurk in the harbor
as a banner of national power
or to aid in the safety of Americans
in case of chaos
if the rebels should toss out the Spanish
Meanwhile America had things to sell
"War is a bloody good biz"
said th' steel magnates of Pa.
(ships & cannons)
said the lumber kings
(big forests in Cuba to grab)
th' gunmakers
(rifles, cannons, stabbing devices)
and Massachusetts cloth
(uniforms, bandages!)
Why not stomp the mean-souled men of Spain
out of Cuba?"
So, when on February 15, '98 the Maine blew up and sank
with 268 dead
the US public was inflamed and assumed Spain had done it
There were two competing reports:
one from Spain that said the cause was an
internal flaw in the Maine
(unstable gunpowder stored next to coal bunkers)
but the US told its people the attack
was a subsurface mine.
Terror has its silence
& so the case is open
a hundred years later
over who did what
(In 1976 US Admiral Hyman Rickover
published a study
that the ship had most likely been sunk
from a fire in a coal bunker
that caused five tons of powder nearby to explode
taking out the forward third of the ship)
Yellow Journalism
They say it was a war brought on in part
by Yellow Journalism—
You know how the NY City television stations
focus on slaughter & murd?
That's how the newspapers focused
at century's turn
America has such excitable people
maybe it's in the genes
of those who'd strayed here
from so many worried lands
Yellow J works like an
amphetamine of aggression
to rile up the masses
REMEMBER THE MAINE, TO HELL WITH SPAIN!
was a rhyme of the time.
"Surely the people is grass," the prophet Isaiah sang
("because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it")
whereas the mine owner says
"the Masses are Asses"
& Yellow J knows that hoi polloi [GREEK TEXT OMITTED]
can be coaxed
pretty quickly
to torches and pitchforks.
It was the era that showed
how the sharp serifs of journalism
make nations bleed
On February 18
William Randolph Hearst's
New York American
published an extra edition
with the headline WHOLE COUNTRY THRILLS
WITH THE WAR FEVER YET THE
PRESIDENT SAYS 'IT WAS AN ACCIDENT'
Yellow J was perceived
as riling public hatred
against McKinley
for not declaring war
till the Republicans were worried
the Democrats would use it
to pound the drums of the masses
The Antique Empire of Spain
Meanwhile 7,000 miles away in the Philippines
insurgents there were also fighting Spain
led by a guerrilla leader named Emilio Aguinaldo.
On his own the
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
told Captain George Dewey
commander of the Eastern fleet in Hong Kong
that if war were declared
he was to steam to Manila
to tear down the Spanish fleet.
Meanwhile a Senator from Vermont
named Redfield Proctor
had visited Cuba
& issued a report on conditions
He said more than 400,000 were still in concentration camps
with much starvation
The skulls of evil were stretching single file
from the camps of Cuba
all the way to the
paste-up rooms of the Hearst & Pulitzer papers
The Senator gave a speech
on March 17
A war was needed, he said, to protect American property
& prevent them dang
leftist rebels
from taking over!
April 11
McKinley sent a message to Congress asking for war:
He said the USA was "a Christian, peace-loving people"
but that
"In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization,
in behalf of endangered American interests
which give us the right and duty
to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop"
April 19
US Congress recognized Cuban independence
and called on the Spanish to leave
(the US tended to snub
the Cuban rebels
never treated them as equals
or talked to them at all)
April 20
Congress in a joint resolution gave McKinley
"the power to intervene"
The Senate added the Teller Amendment to the resolution:
"That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition to exercise
sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the
pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is
accomplished to leave the government and control of the island to its
people."
Teller was a Senator from Colorado
His Amendment to the
intervention resolution
was a good tactic to calm American liberals
and anti-imperialists
Songs are sometimes the prolegomenon to bloodshed
as in the House of Representatives
the night they voted
the war-smitten shout-sang "Dixie" and
the "Battle Hymn of the Republic"
The Anti-Imperialist League
The year of the Spanish War
the Anti-Imperialist League was formed
—a peculiar American mix of intellectuals, trade unionists, writers,
prominent biz types (including Andrew Carnegie)
scholars such as Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard,
plus "antilabor aristocrats" and thousands of liberals
who shook their head in disgust at the
maim-minded shoving for markets,
& the mangled borders of nations
The novelist William Dean Howells, for instance
opposed the war
spoke out
became pres of th'
Anti-Imperialist League
He called himself a socialist
as he aged
instead of toryizing (the more usual path).
Just as Hardy returned to verse in his old age
in Howells it brought out his radical vision.
The cold, genius eye of Mark Twain too
took in the
restless moans
of the Border Bashers
the laughable groveling for money
& the religion-spouting murderous fists
of mercantile misery—
Though at first he supported
the stomping of Spain from Cuba
Twain later became a vice president
of the A-I League
* * *
On 4-22
T. Roosevelt resigned as Secretary of the Navy,
to lead a volunteer cavalry called the "Rough Riders"
He ordered himself a Lieutenant-Colonel's uniform from
Brooks Brothers
the color o' blue, and
no yellow on the collar, please—
perhaps he didn't want the the hue of flee
to tinge his glee.
Americans of many kinds
miners, cowboys, cops, college students et alia multa
held up their hands
to join the Rough Rider regiment
A Picnic War
On the first of May
the US Navy under Captain Dewey
attacked the Spanish ships in Manila harbor
the Philippines
His steam ships puffed
back and forth
sinking and destroying
till the Spanish surrendered
with only 6 Americans hurt, none seriously
though 381 Spanish troops were "killed and wounded"
The yellow press and many Americans swooned in a kind of
wargasm
as the troops went ashore
and took Manila August 13
Then Cuba
The 9th & 10th Cavalry were
black units known for their kill-skills
in the Indian Wars
The 9th & 10th were taken to a staging ground in Tampa
to get ready for Cuba
where even though they were the best of soldiers
stood trapped in the whim webs of dribble-headed crackers
as when in Tampa a rumor
that drunken white sailors had used a black child
for target practice
triggered a riot for several days
with 27 blacks and 3 whites hurt.
Meanwhile June 10 came
& the Americans invaded at Guantánamo Bay
but their horses never arrived
Nor did they arrive by June 24
the first land battle at Las Guásimas in Cuba
near the harbor of Santiago.
Just about the first ashore
were the Rough Riders
and the 9th & 10th black cavalry
There were scads of reporters
including Stephen Crane
The horseless Rough Riders
sang a ditty
as they charged ashore:
Rough, rough, we're the stuff
We want to fight, & can't get enough!
Whoopee!
It wasn't a Pope-level couplet
but Pope isn't needed to stir a risk-taking vim.
The Spanish soon fled their positions
& the Rough Riders & their horseless cavalry
reached the hilltop
& the Battle of Las Guásimas
shouted shut.
Sixteen Americans were dead
in the first fight of th' picnic war
July 2
The Battle of San Juan Hill
A few days later the Americans
arrived at the rings of guns
around Santiago itself
Late that morn
it was very, very warm
in the thick-grown jungle
as 5,000 Americans
began to sharpshoot
the Spanish strongpoint on San Juan Hill
Rapid-fire Gatling-guns
were brought to the sharpshoot
in the afternoon
so that the Rough Riders & the black cavalry
could stealth-stalk
through high grass
clump by clump
in the Gatling distractions
up to the hilltop
till, darkness surrounding,
the Americans won the ground.
July 3
Battle of Santiago Bay
The Spaniards retreated to Santiago itself
and on July 17
24,000 surrendered
& on the 24th
the Spanish gov't asked for peace
and the picnic war was over
It was something the nation seemed always ready to tolerate—
a war where the deaths were few
In Cuba just 379
& the grief therefore contained
in a huge nation's disparate pockets
& most of the more than 274,000 American troops
surged home in joy and youthful triumph
The Grabbing of Hawaii
In the midst of the war
in July o' '98
the "issue" of Hawaii came up
The Hawaiian Isles
known as the Sandwich Islands
had been a target of Christian missionaries
some of whom had become big time pineapple farmers
& in effect ran the Islands
One Sanford Dole
(you know, Dole Pineapple)
was the President of Hawaii at the time
Some were anxious that the Germans
who were looking for Pacific islands
might seize Mr. Dole's hegemony zone.
The imperialists
wanted to grab it
such as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
which recommended
seizing the Sandwiches posthaste
Others wanted America
to stay within her borders
true to her nonmalignant destiny—
It was a big debate
and one that would not really be resolved
for the next 100 years
* * *
In late September
there was a huge celebration
& a parade up 5th Avenue
The Rough Riders
gave TR the Frederic Remington bronze
named The Bronco Buster
To his credit he publicly thanked the black troops for their bravery
yet the heroes he praised
could not get served
in the restaurants of the south
upon their return
while the white troops
feasted free of chit
From the B&N Reads Blog
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