The Poetry of Revolt
Charles Ashleigh
Arrows in the Gale, by Arturo Giovannitti. [Hillacre Bookhouse, Riverside, Connecticut.]
Thereare many ways in which we can approach this curious and portentous volume. We may confine ourselves solely to the technique of the writing, but, in so doing, we should ignore the most important and compelling part of the book: its spirit. There is something which flames through these poems that abashes one who would content himself with a sterile commentary on the versification; only those who are afraid of life would take refuge in such pedantic air-beating.
In this book there is a combination of two of the most significant personalities of our time. The preface is written by that miracle incarnate: Helen Keller. In it she gives us the background of the poems—a background of tumultuous class-conflict. The awakening of the working-class, and its surprising growth of self-reliance and militancy, is the inspiration of the book, and Helen Keller announces herself for it and with it.
Giovannitti himself is a remarkable man of remarkable antecedents. He emigrated from his native Italy at the age of seventeen, and was precipitated into our whirl of economic struggle. He worked in Pennsylvania in the coal mines and, later, assumed the position which he still holds: that of editor of the Italian revolutionary weekly,Il Proletario. In the now famous Lawrence strike he was one of those who were most valuable in stimulating the sense of solidarity among the workers and in maintaining their enthusiasm. Together with Joseph J. Ettor and Caruso, he spent several months in jail, awaiting his trial on a faked-up murder charge. They were acquitted, not so much because of the legal justice of their cause but because of the fact that their condemnation would have resulted in the paralysis of the textile industry. With their threat of general strike the workers forced the courts of their masters to deliver up to them their captive spokesmen. The excitement and publicity resultant from the Lawrence Strike brought into prominence the ideas of Giovannitti and others who were espousers of the Syndicalist idea, which in this country is expressed through the organization known as the Industrial Workers of the World.
It is necessary to have some idea of these matters in order to appreciate theleit motifof this book. All through it flares that spirit of impatient revolt, that spurning of most of the scaffolding of our decrepit civilization which is usually held up for admiration to the budding youth of this country. Courts of law, churches, and parliaments all fall under the blinding fire of the bitter contempt of this workman in revolt.
Despite occasional faults in form or stress—and we must rememberthat Giovannitti is writing in an alien tongue—the poems are vibrant with life and some of them express with truest art things which are not always considered by our academic friends to be at all within the province of poetry.
Sometimes the formal verse forms are used and, at other times, the poet has recourse to the free rhythmic mode of Whitman. Personally, I think that the best work is in the free verse.The Walker, a jail experience of Giovannitti’s, is a wonderful piece of work and should be bracketed withThe Ballad of Reading Gaol. The finest thing in the book isThe Cage, a poem which appeared originally inThe Atlantic Monthly, and which is one of the few things which have preserved that journal from irredeemable mediocrity.
The Cageexpresses the thoughts and emotions of the writer when he stood with his two comrades in the dock of Salem courthouse. The contrast is drawn between the outworn formalities and rites of the law and the lusty life of labor,—between the dead lives of the dismal practitioners of a stilted and tyrannical formula and the life of vigorous conflict of the awakening working-class.
This is the inside of the court-room:
In the middle of the great greenish room stood the green iron cage.All was old, and cold and mournful, ancient with the double antiquity of heart and brain in the great greenish room,Old and hoary was the man who sat upon the faldstool, upon the fireless and godless altar,Old were the tomes that mouldered behind him on the dusty shelves.Old was the man upon his left who awoke with his cracked voice the dead echoes of dead centuries, old the man upon his right who wielded a wand; and old all those who spoke to him and listened to him before and around the green iron cage.Old were the words they spoke, and their faces were drawn and white and lifeless, without expression or solemnity; like the ikons of old cathedrals.For of naught they knew, but of what was written in the old, yellow books. And all the joys and the pains and the loves and hatreds and furies and labors and strifes of man, all the fierce and divine passions that battle and rage in the heart of man, never entered into the great greenish room but to sit in the green iron cage.Senility, dullness and dissolution were all around the green iron cage, and nothing was new and young and alive in the great room, except the three men who were in the cage.
In the middle of the great greenish room stood the green iron cage.All was old, and cold and mournful, ancient with the double antiquity of heart and brain in the great greenish room,Old and hoary was the man who sat upon the faldstool, upon the fireless and godless altar,Old were the tomes that mouldered behind him on the dusty shelves.Old was the man upon his left who awoke with his cracked voice the dead echoes of dead centuries, old the man upon his right who wielded a wand; and old all those who spoke to him and listened to him before and around the green iron cage.Old were the words they spoke, and their faces were drawn and white and lifeless, without expression or solemnity; like the ikons of old cathedrals.For of naught they knew, but of what was written in the old, yellow books. And all the joys and the pains and the loves and hatreds and furies and labors and strifes of man, all the fierce and divine passions that battle and rage in the heart of man, never entered into the great greenish room but to sit in the green iron cage.Senility, dullness and dissolution were all around the green iron cage, and nothing was new and young and alive in the great room, except the three men who were in the cage.
In the middle of the great greenish room stood the green iron cage.All was old, and cold and mournful, ancient with the double antiquity of heart and brain in the great greenish room,Old and hoary was the man who sat upon the faldstool, upon the fireless and godless altar,Old were the tomes that mouldered behind him on the dusty shelves.Old was the man upon his left who awoke with his cracked voice the dead echoes of dead centuries, old the man upon his right who wielded a wand; and old all those who spoke to him and listened to him before and around the green iron cage.Old were the words they spoke, and their faces were drawn and white and lifeless, without expression or solemnity; like the ikons of old cathedrals.For of naught they knew, but of what was written in the old, yellow books. And all the joys and the pains and the loves and hatreds and furies and labors and strifes of man, all the fierce and divine passions that battle and rage in the heart of man, never entered into the great greenish room but to sit in the green iron cage.Senility, dullness and dissolution were all around the green iron cage, and nothing was new and young and alive in the great room, except the three men who were in the cage.
In the middle of the great greenish room stood the green iron cage.All was old, and cold and mournful, ancient with the double antiquity of heart and brain in the great greenish room,Old and hoary was the man who sat upon the faldstool, upon the fireless and godless altar,Old were the tomes that mouldered behind him on the dusty shelves.Old was the man upon his left who awoke with his cracked voice the dead echoes of dead centuries, old the man upon his right who wielded a wand; and old all those who spoke to him and listened to him before and around the green iron cage.Old were the words they spoke, and their faces were drawn and white and lifeless, without expression or solemnity; like the ikons of old cathedrals.For of naught they knew, but of what was written in the old, yellow books. And all the joys and the pains and the loves and hatreds and furies and labors and strifes of man, all the fierce and divine passions that battle and rage in the heart of man, never entered into the great greenish room but to sit in the green iron cage.Senility, dullness and dissolution were all around the green iron cage, and nothing was new and young and alive in the great room, except the three men who were in the cage.
In the middle of the great greenish room stood the green iron cage.
All was old, and cold and mournful, ancient with the double antiquity of heart and brain in the great greenish room,
Old and hoary was the man who sat upon the faldstool, upon the fireless and godless altar,
Old were the tomes that mouldered behind him on the dusty shelves.
Old was the man upon his left who awoke with his cracked voice the dead echoes of dead centuries, old the man upon his right who wielded a wand; and old all those who spoke to him and listened to him before and around the green iron cage.
Old were the words they spoke, and their faces were drawn and white and lifeless, without expression or solemnity; like the ikons of old cathedrals.
For of naught they knew, but of what was written in the old, yellow books. And all the joys and the pains and the loves and hatreds and furies and labors and strifes of man, all the fierce and divine passions that battle and rage in the heart of man, never entered into the great greenish room but to sit in the green iron cage.
Senility, dullness and dissolution were all around the green iron cage, and nothing was new and young and alive in the great room, except the three men who were in the cage.
And, then, when the prosecutor speaks, we have an insight into the fervor with which Giovannitti greets the overthrow of the old and the budding of the new:
... he said (and dreary as a wind that moans thru the crosses of an old graveyard was his voice):“I will prove to you that these three men in the cage are criminals and murderers and that they ought to be put to death.”Love, it was then that I heard for the first time the creak of the moth that was eating the old painting and the old books, and the worm that was gnawing the old bench, and it was then that I saw that all the old men around the great greenish room were dead.They were dead like the old man in the painting, save that they could still read the old books he could read no more, and still spoke and heard the old words he could speak and hear no more, and still passed the judgment of the dead, which he could no more pass, upon the mighty life of the world outside that throbbed and thundered and clamored and roared the wonderful anthem of human labor to the fatherly justice of the Sun.
... he said (and dreary as a wind that moans thru the crosses of an old graveyard was his voice):“I will prove to you that these three men in the cage are criminals and murderers and that they ought to be put to death.”Love, it was then that I heard for the first time the creak of the moth that was eating the old painting and the old books, and the worm that was gnawing the old bench, and it was then that I saw that all the old men around the great greenish room were dead.They were dead like the old man in the painting, save that they could still read the old books he could read no more, and still spoke and heard the old words he could speak and hear no more, and still passed the judgment of the dead, which he could no more pass, upon the mighty life of the world outside that throbbed and thundered and clamored and roared the wonderful anthem of human labor to the fatherly justice of the Sun.
... he said (and dreary as a wind that moans thru the crosses of an old graveyard was his voice):“I will prove to you that these three men in the cage are criminals and murderers and that they ought to be put to death.”Love, it was then that I heard for the first time the creak of the moth that was eating the old painting and the old books, and the worm that was gnawing the old bench, and it was then that I saw that all the old men around the great greenish room were dead.They were dead like the old man in the painting, save that they could still read the old books he could read no more, and still spoke and heard the old words he could speak and hear no more, and still passed the judgment of the dead, which he could no more pass, upon the mighty life of the world outside that throbbed and thundered and clamored and roared the wonderful anthem of human labor to the fatherly justice of the Sun.
... he said (and dreary as a wind that moans thru the crosses of an old graveyard was his voice):“I will prove to you that these three men in the cage are criminals and murderers and that they ought to be put to death.”Love, it was then that I heard for the first time the creak of the moth that was eating the old painting and the old books, and the worm that was gnawing the old bench, and it was then that I saw that all the old men around the great greenish room were dead.They were dead like the old man in the painting, save that they could still read the old books he could read no more, and still spoke and heard the old words he could speak and hear no more, and still passed the judgment of the dead, which he could no more pass, upon the mighty life of the world outside that throbbed and thundered and clamored and roared the wonderful anthem of human labor to the fatherly justice of the Sun.
... he said (and dreary as a wind that moans thru the crosses of an old graveyard was his voice):
“I will prove to you that these three men in the cage are criminals and murderers and that they ought to be put to death.”
Love, it was then that I heard for the first time the creak of the moth that was eating the old painting and the old books, and the worm that was gnawing the old bench, and it was then that I saw that all the old men around the great greenish room were dead.
They were dead like the old man in the painting, save that they could still read the old books he could read no more, and still spoke and heard the old words he could speak and hear no more, and still passed the judgment of the dead, which he could no more pass, upon the mighty life of the world outside that throbbed and thundered and clamored and roared the wonderful anthem of human labor to the fatherly justice of the Sun.
To me such stuff as this means a hundred times more than a thousand sonnets to a mistress’ eye-lash, or than the weak maudlinities of an absinthe-soaked eroto-dabbler, wailing puling repentance to a pale Christ. It is compact of life—life as it is today, made, not for the tittillation of dilletantes, but for the enjoyment and inspiration of men who can appreciate the meat of life redolent of sweat and blood and tears.
This is Giovannitti’s picture of the Republic, after it had been gained with blood and sacrifice:
When night with velvet-sandaled feetStole in her chamber’s solitude,Behold! she lay there naked, lewd,A drunken harlot of the street,With withered breasts and shaggy hairSoiled by each wanton, frothy kiss,Between a sergeant of policeAnd a decrepit millionaire.
When night with velvet-sandaled feetStole in her chamber’s solitude,Behold! she lay there naked, lewd,A drunken harlot of the street,With withered breasts and shaggy hairSoiled by each wanton, frothy kiss,Between a sergeant of policeAnd a decrepit millionaire.
When night with velvet-sandaled feetStole in her chamber’s solitude,Behold! she lay there naked, lewd,A drunken harlot of the street,With withered breasts and shaggy hairSoiled by each wanton, frothy kiss,Between a sergeant of policeAnd a decrepit millionaire.
When night with velvet-sandaled feetStole in her chamber’s solitude,Behold! she lay there naked, lewd,A drunken harlot of the street,
When night with velvet-sandaled feet
Stole in her chamber’s solitude,
Behold! she lay there naked, lewd,
A drunken harlot of the street,
With withered breasts and shaggy hairSoiled by each wanton, frothy kiss,Between a sergeant of policeAnd a decrepit millionaire.
With withered breasts and shaggy hair
Soiled by each wanton, frothy kiss,
Between a sergeant of police
And a decrepit millionaire.
Love poems also figure in the book, but the dominant note is that of conflict. Giovannitti has realized the pregnant fact that in struggle is the greatest joy, that the ecstasy of growth and striving is worth more that the bovine placidity of “happiness.” At the end of his love-song,The Praise of Spring, he says:
But shall I sing of love now, I who could only sing to the tune of the clarions of war?And shall I forget for a woman my black frothing horse that neighs after the twanging arrows in the wind?And shall I not lose my strength when her arms shall encircle me where thou hast girt me with the sword, O Gea, my mother immortal?
But shall I sing of love now, I who could only sing to the tune of the clarions of war?And shall I forget for a woman my black frothing horse that neighs after the twanging arrows in the wind?And shall I not lose my strength when her arms shall encircle me where thou hast girt me with the sword, O Gea, my mother immortal?
But shall I sing of love now, I who could only sing to the tune of the clarions of war?And shall I forget for a woman my black frothing horse that neighs after the twanging arrows in the wind?And shall I not lose my strength when her arms shall encircle me where thou hast girt me with the sword, O Gea, my mother immortal?
But shall I sing of love now, I who could only sing to the tune of the clarions of war?And shall I forget for a woman my black frothing horse that neighs after the twanging arrows in the wind?And shall I not lose my strength when her arms shall encircle me where thou hast girt me with the sword, O Gea, my mother immortal?
But shall I sing of love now, I who could only sing to the tune of the clarions of war?
And shall I forget for a woman my black frothing horse that neighs after the twanging arrows in the wind?
And shall I not lose my strength when her arms shall encircle me where thou hast girt me with the sword, O Gea, my mother immortal?
Giovannitti makes no claim for inclusion in Parnassian galleries. He believes that deeds count for more than words, and he essays but to make a handful of war-songs for the pleasure of his comrades.
Still may my song, before the sun’sReveille, speed the hours that tire,While they are cleaning up their gunsAround the cheery bivouac fire.
Still may my song, before the sun’sReveille, speed the hours that tire,While they are cleaning up their gunsAround the cheery bivouac fire.
Still may my song, before the sun’sReveille, speed the hours that tire,While they are cleaning up their gunsAround the cheery bivouac fire.
Still may my song, before the sun’sReveille, speed the hours that tire,While they are cleaning up their gunsAround the cheery bivouac fire.
Still may my song, before the sun’s
Reveille, speed the hours that tire,
While they are cleaning up their guns
Around the cheery bivouac fire.
And so, these are the rough-hewn songs of a man; of one who goes his way with his love upholding him and the Vision burning within him and the sound of battle forever in his ears and the whole-hearted hate of his enemy to spur him, and the stalwart comradeship of his fellows to make dear the thorny way.