From the chilly hills of New England, we can look south to that part of our country often called Dixie. What do we see? A warm haven for snow-averse Northerners, a well-deserved reputation for hospitality and fine cooking, some happy reminiscences of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, and a couple of unique offerings: college athletes that verge on the professional and an array, past and present, of America’s finest poets.
Whoa. Really? Well, may I just mention Tennessee Williams, Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, William Faulkner, Dubose Heyward, James Dickey, and yes, Edgar Allan Poe, who was born in Boston but adopted by a Virginia family when he was only two.
Note: For purposes of delineating the South, I am using the line established by two chaps sent over from England: Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon (thus Dixie). It runs basically south of Pennsylvania. (Typically British, a pair of land surveyors had been requested, and these two who arrived were both astronomers.)
* * *
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is universally admired as the inventor of the detective story and a master of the mysterious and macabre; but his poetry is equally remarkable for its craft and inventiveness. His best-known poem has provided a name for the Baltimore Ravens football team; but his finest lyric to my mind is “To Helen” with its beautiful classical allusions about Helen of Troy. He may have written this while still a teenager.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
There is a musicality to Poe’s writing which has inspired many classical composers and dozens of pop and rock bands to set his verse to music. Debussy, Bernstein and Rachmaninoff are among those who responded to his writing, especially to these colorful and highly musical stanzas from “The Bells.”
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
In spite of the jubilation of this poem, Poe led a difficult life and died under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore.
One final note, probably of interest only to me. At one point in his life Poe took on the assumed name of Edgar A. Perry.
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Let’s look now to other poets who have established a fine Southern tradition.
DUBOSE HEYWARD, (1885-1940), born in Charleston, South Carolina, was a poet and a novelist. In 1925 he published a novel called “Porgy,” which he and his wife later adapted for the stage. George Gershwin thought it would be a rich subject for an opera, and thus “Porgy and Bess” was born. For this masterpiece Heyward was co-lyricist with George’s brother Ira, but one of the most memorable lyrics was entirely by Heyward.
Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high
Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry.
One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky
But till that morning
There’s a’nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by.
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JOHN CROWE RANSOM (1888-1974) from Tennessee has been called the Dean of 20th Century Poets and Critics. A renowned teacher at Vanderbilt and Kenyon, with students including Robert Lowell, E.L. Doctorow and James Wright, his own poetry is precise, wry and often whimsical. This sonnet is called “Piazza Piece.”
—I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all,
They want the young men’s whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.
—I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what grey man among the vines is this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871-1938) was a lawyer and important NAACP official, a diplomat, and to our interest, a writer of rousing verse. (See Video) Born in Jacksonville and educated in Georgia, Johnson spent considerable time in the North, and here’s where local pride comes to the fore. Johnson bought a property called Five Acres along the Alford Brook in Great Barrington, and there wrote most of his famous book, “God’s Trombones.” His writing cabin still exists.
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ALICE WALKER (1944 – ) comes from Georgia. The first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction (“The Color Purple”), she has a stanza-length name: Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker, and a rare poetic gift. Here is an excerpt from her poem, “What Do I Get for Getting Old?”
I get to spend time with myself
whenever I want.
I get to eat chocolate
with my salad.
Or even as a first course.
I get to forget!
I get to paint
with colors
I mix myself.
Colors
I’ve never seen
before.
I get to sleep
with my dog
& pray never to outlive
my cat.
I get to play
music
without reading
a note.
I get to spend time with myself
whenever I want!
I get to greet
people I don’t remember
as if I know them
very well.
I get to grow
my entire
garden
in a few
pots!
I get to feel
more love
than I ever thought
existed:
everything appears to be made
of the stuff!
I feel this
especially for You.
though I may not remember
exactly which You
you are.
How cool is this!
Still, I get to spend time with myself
whenever I want!
And that is just a taste
as the old people used to say
down in Georgia
when I was a child
of what you get
for getting old.
* * *
Among modern poets of the South, I am particularly fond of Nikki Giovanni, who teaches at Virginia Tech. Nikki, now 78, is still very much in the news and was featured in a NY Times article just this past Christmas. Outspoken as always, she said: “I hate the little drummer boy. This girl just had a baby, she’s in a manger, she’s got a bunch of animals, and he’s coming in saying ‘Can I play on my drum?’ No, damn it! Do something worthwhile. If that had been the little drummer girl, she would have helped clean out the manger.”
Here’s one of her best-known poems, “Love Is.”
Some people forget that love is
tucking you in and kissing you
‘Good night’
no matter how young or old you are
Some people don’t remember that
love is
listening and laughing and asking
questions
no matter what your age
Few recognize that love is
commitment, responsibility
no fun at all
unless
Love is
You and me
So right! And now to our video.
VIDEO. From a concert performance in Atlanta, GA, the First Poetry Quartet with guest Ruby Dee present:
“Southward Returning” by Donald Davidson (Tenn.)
“The Celebration” by James Dickey (Ga.)
“Crepe de Chine” by Tennessee Williams (Miss.)
and for a tub-thumpin’, foot-stompin’ finale, “Judgement Day” by James Weldon Johnson (Fla. and . . . Great Barrington!).
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: VOICES FROM THE SOUTH
