Part 14

Mr. Lindsay received the Levinson Prize for the best poem contributed to 'Poetry', a magazine of verse, (Chicago) for 1915.

"We do not know a young man of any more promise than Mr. Vachel Lindsay for the task which he seems to have set himself."--'The Dial'.

General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems Price, $1.25; leather, $1.60

This book contains among other verses: "On Reading Omar Khayyam during an Anti-Saloon Campaign in Illinois"; "The Wizard Wind"; "The Eagle Forgotten", a Memorial to John P. Altgeld; "The Knight in Disguise", a Memorial to O. Henry; "The Rose and the Lotus"; "Michaelangelo"; "Titian"; "What the Hyena Said"; "What Grandpa Mouse Said"; "A Net to Snare the Moonlight"; "Springfield Magical"; "The Proud Farmer"; "The Illinois Village"; "The Building of Springfield".

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Comments on the Title Poem:

"This poem, at once so glorious, so touching and poignant in its conception and expression ... is perhaps the most remarkable poem of a decade--one that defies imitation."--'Review of Reviews'.

"A sweeping and penetrating vision that works with a naive charm.... No American poet of to-day is more a people's poet."--'Boston Transcript'.

"One could hardly overpraise 'General Booth'."--'New York Times'.

"Something new in verse, spontaneous, passionate, unmindful of conventions in form and theme."--'The Living Age'.

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty Price, $1.00

This is a series of happening afoot while reciting at back-doors in the west, and includes some experiences while harvesting in Kansas. It includes several proclamations which apply the Gospel of Beauty to agricultural conditions. There are, among other rhymed interludes: "The Shield of Faith", "The Flute of the Lonely", "The Rose of Midnight", "Kansas", "The Kallyope Yell".

Something to Read

Vachel Lindsay took a walk from his home in Springfield, Ill., over the prairies to New Mexico. He was in Kansas in wheat-harvest time and he worked as a farmhand, and he tells all about that. He tells about his walks and the people he met in a little book, "Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty".

For the conditions of his tramps were that he should keep away from cities, money, baggage, and pay his way by reciting his own poems. And he did it. People liked his pieces, and tramp farmhands with rough necks and rougher hands left off singing smutty limericks and took to "Atalanta in Calydon" apparently because they preferred it. Of motor cars, which gave him a lift, he says: "I still maintain that the auto is a carnal institution, to be shunned by the truly spiritual, but there are times when I, for one, get tired of being spiritual." His story of the "Five Little Children Eating Mush" (that was one night in Colorado, and he recited to them while they ate supper) has more beauty and tenderness and jolly tears than all the expensive sob stuff theatrical managers ever dreamed of. Mr. Lindsay doesn't need to write verse to be a poet. His prose is poetry--poetry straight from the soil, of America that is, and of a nobler America that is to be. You cannot afford--both for your entertainment and for the REAL IDEA that this young man has (of which we have said nothing)--to miss this book.--Editorial from 'Collier's Weekly'.

The Art of the Moving Picture Price, $1.25

An effort to apply the Gospel of Beauty to a new art.

The first section has an outline which is proposed as a basis for photoplay criticism in America; chapters on: "The Photoplay of Action", "The Intimate Photoplay", "The Picture of Fairy Splendor", "The Picture of Crowd Splendor", "The Picture of Patriotic Splendor", "The Picture of Religious Splendor", "Sculpture in Motion", "Painting in Motion", "Furniture", "Trappings and Inventions in Motion", "Architecture in Motion", "Thirty Differences between the Photoplays and the Stage", "Hieroglyphics". The second section is avowedly more discursive, being more personal speculations and afterthoughts, not brought forward so dogmatically; chapters on: "The Orchestra Conversation and the Censorship", "The Substitute for the Saloon", "California and America", "Progress and Endowment", "Architects as Crusaders", "On Coming Forth by Day", "The Prophet Wizard", "The Acceptable Year of the Lord".

For Late Reviews of Mr. Lindsay and his contemporaries read:

'The New Republic': Articles by Randolph S. Bourne, December 5, 1914, on the "Adventures While Preaching"; and Francis Hackett, December 25, 1915, on "The Art of the Moving Picture".

'The Dial': Unsigned article by Lucien Carey, October 16, 1914, on "The Congo", etc.

'The Yale Review': Article by H. M. Luquiens, July, 1916, on "The Art of the Moving Picture".

General Articles on the Poetry Situation

'The Century Magazine': "America's Golden Age in Poetry", March, 1916.

'Harper's Monthly Magazine': "The Easy Chair", William Dean Howells, September, 1915.

'The Craftsman': "Has America a National Poetry?" Amy Lowell, July, 1916.

Biographical Note:

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931): (Vachel is pronounced Vay-chul, that is, it rhymes with 'Rachel').