The Congo, and Other Poems - Vachel Lindsay

   1914 (original) & 2008 (this compilation); 102 pages.  New Author? : Yes.    Genre : American Literature; Poetry.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    “Hey, let’s sing a poem together!”

    “Say what?  You read poems; you don’t sing poems.”

    “Sure you do.  The ancient Greeks did it all the time.  But if you don’t feel like singing one, we could chant it together instead.”

    “That’s just as crazy.  Besides, I don’t speak a word of ancient Greek.”

    “No problem.  There’s this American poet who has written poems to be sung or chanted, not read to oneself.  He even writes directions on exactly how loud you’re supposed to do it, and what tone of voice you should use.”

    “Hmm.  Sounds like some sort of 1960’s beatnik.  Or maybe a rap artist.”

    “Nope.  He wrote these poems more than a hundred years ago, in and around 1914.  Back before anybody else was doing this sort of thing.  Except for the ancient Greeks, of course.”

    “Really?!  Well, okay then.  I’m out of excuses.  Let’s give it a try.  What’s this guy’s name, anyway?”

    “Vachel Lindsay.”

What’s To Like...

    The Congo, and Other Poems is a set of 66 of Vachel Lindsay’s poems, although it's not his complete works.  Wikipedia calls Lindsay the “founder of modern singing poetry” but he also wrote a lot of poems in the standard, metered format.

    The book is divided into five sections, namely:

Section 1 : “Poems intended to be read aloud, or chanted.” (14%; 10 poems)

    The “singing/chanting” section.  The poems he’s most famous for.

Section 2 : “Incense” (43%; 17 poems)

    Lindsay reflecting on various themes, including love and all kinds of religions.

Section 3 : “A Miscellany called the Christmas Tree” (59%; 12 poems)

    Light-hearted poems; often short, and with children as the target audience.

Section 4 : “20 Poems in which the Moon is the principle figure of speech” (70%; 20 poems)

    Lindsay apparently had a thing about the moon.

Section 5 : "War – September 1, 1914, Intended to be read aloud” (81%; 7 poems)

    Dark in tone, somber, brooding.  Written about the horrors of The Great War.

    I can’t really say I have a favorite section.  I liked the broad spectrum of moods he could conjure up: – whimsical when writing humorous verse, serious when musing about Death or Heaven, outraged when contemplating war or child prostitution; star-struck when idolizing some of his matinee idols.  Vachel Lindsay is  most famous for his singing/chanting works, but he also wrote poems in the usual meter, and a few with no meter at all.  I was especially impressed by his use of ABAB and ABBA rhyme schemes; most poets use the lazier ABCB format.

    His most famous poem by far is The Congo, which Wikipedia describes as exemplifying “his revolutionary aesthetic of sound for sound's sake. 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.”  It is also his most controversial poem, with him being frequently accused of being racist, or at least patronizing, even by 1914 standards.  Personally, I don’t think he was racist, just blithely naïve.

    A lot of his poems have catchy titles, such as: The Black Hawk War of the Artists; A Rhyme About an Electric Advertising Sign; The Alchemist’s Petition; Popcorn, Glass Balls, and Cranberries; An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic; When Gassy Thompson Struck It Rich; and Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight.  I chortled at his mention of hashish.  In this book, along with the recently-read Babbitt, it is evident that the American drug problem was around long before the 60's.

    I read a couple of these poems each night, which is my usual strategy when reading a book of poetry.  But if you have a book report due tomorrow, this is a good choice; you can finish it easily in a single sitting (1-2 hours).  I have to admit, I enjoyed making myself “mentally” chant the poems in the first section according to their instructions.  I did not attempt to sing any of them.

    I had never heard of Vachel Lindsay before reading The Congo, and Other Poems.  My impression now is that he was a 1920’s “Poet of the Proletariat”, the mantle for which would later pass to Charles Bukowski.  No one will ever mistake Vachel Lindsay’s verses with that of Shakespeare, but I found this book to be an enjoyable and thoughtful read, and beamed at the slight broadening of my narrow poetry tastes.

Kewlest New Word ...

Hecatombs (n., plural) : (In ancient Greece or Rome) great public sacrifices, originally consisting of one hundred oxen.

Others : Pennons (n., plural).

Excerpts...

    Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,

    Pounded on the table,

    Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,

    Hard as they were able,

    Boom, boom, BOOM,

    With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,

    Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

    THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.

     I could not turn from their revel in derision.  (loc. 162, from “The Congo”)

    This is the sin against the Holy Ghost:

    To speak of bloody power as right divine,

    And call on God to guard each vile chief’s house,

    And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine.

    (…)

    In any Church’s name, to sack fair towns,

    And turn each home into a screaming sty,

    To make little children fugitive,

    And have their mothers for a quick death cry.

    (loc. 974; from “The Unpardonable Sin”)

Kindle Details...

    The Congo, and Other Poems sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  There are several other collections of Vachel Lindsay’s poems, most of which include The Congo.  They range from free to $3.39.  I went with the 99-cents version because it seemed like the freebie might just be scanned images of the paperback, in which case, Kindle-highlighting might not have been available.  A dollar for a book isn’t going to break me.

We find your soft Utopias as white

As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells.  (loc. 500, from “An Argument”)

    A few words about Vachel Lindsay…

    He was born November 10, 1879; and died December 05, 1931.  “The Congo” was written in 1914,  and his most productive period seems to have been the World War One years.

    He was an energetic poet, at one point traveling by foot through several western states for inspiration.  His aim was to restore “poetry as a song art, appealing to the ear rather than the eye.”

    Alas, he was also a  “starving artist” poet.  In 1931, plagued by financial worries and failing health, he committed suicide by drinking a bottle of Lysol.  Ouch.

    7 Stars.  YouTube has a decent number of videos showing people singing Vachel Lindsay’s works.  I’m not sure if they wrote their own music or if Lindsay composed it.  One thing that made me laugh was the various ways that the video-narrators guessed as to how to pronounce “Vachel”.  According to this book, it rhymes with “Rachel”.