Superman did not wear his boots Like a rust belt robot. Rustbot strikes a blow for the humdrum: The “thou-shalt-nots” and the “thou-shalts” Drip no poetry. The carnivore shall Devour before being devoured & chase Each cent down the rodent hole: jump— Jump through the looking-glass.
Believe in only what you see, For beyond the rust belt, there Are shiny things, but they are not For us, they are for them People. We keep to ourselves Streetscape, river-bank, or pine-wood Where limbs scrape the clouds, And we all stay where we belong.
You don’t have to sell your soul To buy this advice. You have to rent It out on main street, where The clack of stilettos fuses With crack-heads, where gas-bag Gutter-crackers all sooner Hack as spit at you.
W. H. Auden’s politically influenced poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” portrays a character whose life has been stifled by “the State,” yet, who does not recognize his subjugation—making him a perfect citizen. In many respects, Auden’s speaker is foreshadowing the politics of 21st century America.
Introduction with Text of “The Unknown Citizen”
Poet W.H. Auden relocated from England to the United States in 1939. He experienced the stifling affects [1]of the New Deal legislation of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration.
The creeping socialistic policies were beginning to transform the once free nation into a ghetto of socialism. It has been calculated that those policies prolonged the Great Depression by as much as seven [2] years.
Once a country where the citizen was free to develop his talents and interests, the socialist policies of the FDR administration were beginning to stifle that character, placing the individual into a metaphoric, bureaucratic wall.
Auden’s dissatisfaction with this socialist trend plays out masterfully in his poem, “The Unknown Citizen.” The poem’s subtitle establishes a “citizen” without a name, who is thus characterless and without status as an individual.
The “citizen” has merely been designated by a vague string of letters and numbers which, however, are not without significance for the reader: “JS/07 M 378” likely alludes to the initials of the widely common name, “John Smith,” the “M” likely refers to “male,” while the numbers, station the man in the bureaucratic brick wall of similarity and conformity.
With bitter irony, this characterless individual is not an individual in the meaningful and humane sense of the word. That the state would erect a “marble monument” to such a brick-in-the-wall is risible.
Yet the designation—”unknown citizen”—is reminiscent of the term applied to those with high honor: “the unknown soldier,” whose remains cannot be identified but are granted honor for service to the country.
While honoring an unknown military serviceman, who lost his life defending his country has always been a high purpose for any country, no state would erect any kind of monument to the faceless, characterless individuals who make up the designated selection called “unknown citizen” as described in this highly symbolic and ironic poem.
The poem plays out in groups of rime with similar content, as it displays in eight movements.
The Unknown Citizen
(To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
Auden reading
Commentary on “The Unknown Citizen”
W. H. Auden’s widely anthologized classic poem portrays a pathetic character whose life has been stifled by “the State,” representing a form of government which seeks to subjugate the citizenry.
Auden employs irony to protest the state-owned life that goes against the basic American principle that the purpose of government is to protect “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for its citizens.
Auden’s wry description of his target reveals that this “unknown citizen” has had his independent ability to think and feel benumbed by the systemic, statist control under which he resides.
First Movement: A Bureaucrat Speaks
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
The speaker appears to be a bureaucrat who has found it important enough to file this report regarding the unknown individual, henceforth called “the unknown citizen.”
The speaker begins reporting that by a government agency no issues of resistance were ever detected by this “unknown citizen.” This unknown individual seemed to have functioned in a bureaucratically perfect manner throughout his life which resulted in his life “serv[ing] the Greater Community.”
The speaker offers a comic exaggeration of the citizen’s status by calling him a “saint”—but only in a “modern sense” of that “old-fashioned word,” indicating that any mystical or religious meaning be sucked out of that term. While a true saint remains a unique individual in his sainthood, this “saint” functions only for the state, not for his own unique relationship with the Divine.
Because the description of the citizen in this poem can be detected in the current political atmosphere of the USA, W. H. Auden has demonstrated a high level of prescience as his speaker reports on this state-obliging, willingly over-taxed citizen [3].
Such a citizen fits well the political ethos [4] of Manchurian Candidate Biden’s definition of a patriotic citizen [5], who, concurs with his former boss, Barack Obama, who insisted, “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody” [6].
The requirement for a controlling socialist state begins with citizens remaining willing pawns in the hands of government authority. Like sheep or lemmings, they follow and never question and that makes the statist overlord rich and satisfied with that citizenry.
Second Movement: An Unquestioning Joiner
Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
This unknown citizen for his entire life labored in the factory or business concern called “Fudge Motor Inc.” He took time off as his patriotic duty called, such as serving in the military. He unquestioningly joined the “union” and paid his dues dutifully.
This unknown citizen enjoyed friends and a drink occasionally. Such a detail demonstrates the thorough intrusion of the state into the lives of individuals. The state has employed “Social Psychology workers” to determine the state-appropriate behavior of every aspect of every citizen’s life.
Auden’s prescience has foreshadowed the 21st century Democratic Party (USA) [7], which attempts to control every aspect of American lives today, from what people can eat and drink to how they use energy.
Third Movement: Controlling the Life of Everyman
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
The unknown citizen read a daily newspaper. He responded properly to the commercial ads. Again, such a detail demonstrates the complete control that the government has over the individual.
The government is glad to report that this citizen had never lodged a complaint against it, as it is unlikely that he ever composed an editorial to the newspaper, detailing his dissatisfaction with any policies. He remained content with journalism, as well as with governmental bureaucracy, and he did not speak out against the social engineering.
Fourth Movement: Properly Insured
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
This subject of the state throughout his life bought the appropriate insurance policies. His health insurance covered his one hospital stay, and he left the facility returned to health again—and lucky for him, he was admitted to the hospital only once.
Fifth Movement: Alarming Information Possessed by the State
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
The unknown citizen managed to procure all the modern conveniences, such as a record-player, a radio, an automobile, and even a refrigerator. Although this kind of information may be gleaned from survey companies that research such information, that the state is privy to it is alarming and unsatisfactory for a free society.
Sixth Movement: Proper Public Opinion
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
This citizen, according to “researchers into Public Opinion,” always maintained ways of thinking that pleased the state. He believed that there was peace if the state declared “there was peace.” But he accepted the state of war if the state reported that conflict broke out.
The governmental “Public Opinion” bureau would not be pleased if the citizen had bucked the system in any way, and no doubt bureaucratic sanctions of some sort would have been applied and reported. But this citizen passed the “Public Opinion” test.
Seventh Movement: Pleasing the State
He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
This citizen’s family life also continued to please the state: the man took a wife and produced the appropriate number of children. That he did not “interfer[e] with their education” would be a blessing for the state, and of course, for the teachers’ unions [8]. The prescience of this poem is again observed as teachers’ unions currently are battling parents [9] to maintain power over those that they should serve.
Eighth Movement: The Struggle against a Faceless Bureaucracy
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
Because this “unknown citizen” has been described as a non-thinker and a completely unfeeling individual, the inquiry into his status of freedom and happiness further demonstrates the irony of the situation. And yet, the final comment adds a further layer of ironic humor.
Because the bureaucratic offices had never heard any complaint from the man, they assume he was, in fact, free and happy, or at least thought himself to be thus. They reason that if anything were wrong, they would have heard.
Of course, the reader of this piece becomes painfully aware of the blandness and the dullness that the state has foisted upon this “citizen.” Following sheeplike the authoritative dictates of a powerful state was the status against which the Founding Fathers of the United States of America struggled to form the kind of government which would allow the most freedom for every citizen.
Poetry and Politics
While poetry and politics usually remain in an uneasy partnership, in the hands of an expert, a political statement can render itself workable in a poem. W. H. Auden was an expert at penning poems even of a political nature, even though he came to dislike many of his own political poems and “withdrew several from publication” [10].
Auden’s use of irony serves to carry “The Unknown Citizen” to a successful outcome. More important is the focus of the political poem; as political poems focus on merely damaging the reputation of an opponent or on falsehoods employed in propaganda, the pieces lose credibility.
But if, like “The Unknown Citizen,” the piece focuses on universal principles such as freedom and individuality, while dramatizing the results that failed policies bring about, the poem can work brilliantly.
Readers will note that the poem does not seek to disparage any government official’s reputation nor does it make propagandistic statements based on inaccuracies and blatant lies; it simply portrays the characteristics that the sheeplike citizen has assimilated in his desire to remain under the radar of state intrusion.
Unbuckled pride strains credulity On cinder blocks in the rain— Profit the man of steel Whose chalk mentality scratches Gold flecks of a summer night. Blank as the dank posted willows That slum the crum tide leeching The verbiage of metaphor walking Like sticks stuck down by the tracks.
In the brain waves of goats, they look For crystalline stalactites, But thiamine quelled the stretch As the Man of Steel hovered The neighborhood and plunged Into the hypocrisy of postmodern wit. Narrowing a brow, lifting a finger, Touting the untoutable, scraping The wilderness out of a circus town.
Night closes ultimately and Whimsy may fade But Dr. Frankenstink will cozy up to her lost foot As long as grapevines tangle on the waste land. Neither past nor future calls his name, and no island Brings comfort as much as departure without infamy. He left no logical heir to fan the flames of his poetry— That dust-drilled style of poetry that everybody reads Until morning echoes in the bottom of a bucket. Run on, Soul of the Man of Steel, to heaven’s loft.
The Sovereign-Citizen Movement: A Dangerous Fantasy
The sovereign-citizen movement claims that a citizen may, through the filing of the right document or the recitation of the right phrase, remain exempt from the jurisdiction of the government that protects him while still enjoying the roads, courts, and public safety that government through taxation of other citizens provides.
That contradiction is not a harmless eccentricity; instead it is a belief system that the FBI has formally classified as a domestic terrorist movement, one that has cost police officers their lives and landed ordinary practitioners in prison, foreclosure, or worse.
Introduction: A Movement without a Charter
Unlike a militia or a political party, and somewhat like Antifa, the sovereign-citizen movement has no headquarters, no membership card, and no single leader. Federal investigators describe sovereign-citizen extremists as a domestic terrorist movement that has persisted for decades, counting among its ranks Terry Nichols, a co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Sovereign citizens are not organized as an anarchist faction or a militia, though some acquire illegal weapons; [1] instead they act as individuals who occasionally cluster into loose, leaderless groups to trade paperwork tips and reinforce one another’s ideology. That looseness is precisely what makes the movement so difficult to track and so easy to underestimate.
The Ideology: Strawman, Freeman, Fictional Escape Hatch
At bottom, sovereign citizens reject the legitimacy of the government under which they live. Believers deny that government has any authority over them and insist they cannot be required to obey the law or answer for breaking it. In practice, this typically means refusing to register vehicles, obtain driver licenses, carry insurance, or pay taxes.
Adherents dress this refusal in pseudo-legal costume: invented “traveler’s” credentials, fictitious license plates from self-declared republics, and filings sprinkled with copyright symbols and phrases like “without prejudice” meant to strip a signature of legal force.
The FBI’s own reference materials catalog these habits—fraudulent plates and IDs, self-styled titles such as “freeman” or “flesh and blood,” and demands that officials produce an “oath of office” or “bond” before being obeyed—as red flags of the ideology in action.
None of it holds up in any American courtroom. Judges dismiss it, and dismiss it fast. The tragedy is how many people stake their liberty, their homes, and occasionally their lives on paperwork that can never work. [2]
Hazard One: Paper Terrorism
The mildest expression of the ideology is bureaucratic sabotage—so common it has earned its own name. Believers harass public officials with baseless legal threats intended to intimidate and to grind government functions to a halt. Sovereign citizens fabricate their own currency and legal documents, file frivolous or harassing lawsuits, and simply ignore court orders they dislike. [3]
Clerks, judges, and county recorders bear the brunt of this—buried under liens filed against their personal property, threatened with private “arrest,” or accused of treason for doing their jobs. It is petty, but it is not nothing. It consumes court time, public resources, and the peace of mind of civil servants who signed up to process deeds, not fend off vigilante tribunals.
Hazard Two: Escalation to Violence
Paper terrorism is the entry point, not the ceiling. Sovereign citizens were connected to fifteen percent of FBI-designated domestic terrorism incidents recorded between 2015 and 2019, and most of those incidents turned violent.
The FBI itself warns that sovereign-citizen crime can escalate as far as assault or murder—a warning grimly confirmed on May 20, 2010, near West Memphis, Arkansas. A routine traffic stop turned lethal when Jerry Kane [4], a self-described sovereign citizen, and his sixteen-year-old son Joseph opened fire on the officers who had pulled them over, killing both.
Officer Bill Evans was struck fourteen times and Sergeant Brandon Paudert eleven, in an ambush that shocked a nation already wary of “deep state” paranoia and anti-government fury.
The Kanes died in a shootout hours later in a Walmart parking lot. Before the killings, Jerry Kane had made his intentions plain: he told an associate he did not want to kill anyone, but that if law enforcement kept “messing with me,” he would have to, and once he started, he would not be able to stop.
Those words are not the language of a harmless hobbyist filing strange paperwork. It is the language of a man who had convinced himself the badge on the officer’s chest carried no authority over him—and who acted accordingly.
Similar confrontations have unfolded from Louisiana to Texas to Wisconsin, a pattern sober enough that law enforcement magazines now train recruits specifically to recognize the movement’s warning signs. [5]
Hazard Three: Financial Predation
Sovereignty is also a business. In one Nevada investigation, four men tied to the movement were arrested on federal money-laundering, tax-evasion, and weapons charges after allegedly laundering more than a million dollars while charging fees for their “services.” [6]
The pitch is seductive: pay us, and we will show you how to erase your debts, evade your taxes, or file a lien that magically discharges your mortgage. It never works, and the believer is often left facing federal charges of his own, on top of whatever losses the scam artist pocketed along the way.
Toward Vigilance, Not Amusement
It is tempting to laugh off the sovereign citizen as a colorful crank—the fellow arguing with a judge that he is a “flesh-and-blood man” beyond the state’s jurisdiction. The temptation should be resisted. A belief system that convinces its adherents the law simply does not apply to them will, sooner or later, produce a Jerry Kane: someone prepared to treat an ordinary traffic stop as an act of war.
Law enforcement now trains for that possibility, and rightly so. The rest of us would do well to understand the ideology clearly enough to recognize it—not as satire, but as the domestic threat the FBI has long said it is.
Lucille Clifton’s “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989”
In Lucille Clifton’s unconventionally capitalized titled poem “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989,” the speaker offers a lament that dramatizes the omission of the mention of slavery during a tour the poet took of Walnut Grove Plantation in South Carolina in 1989.
Introduction with the Text from “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989”
The United States of America in the twenty-first century has become replete with attempts to abolish history [1]. Examples include removing statues of noted individuals such as Frederick Douglass [2], and many others [3], changing names of public buildings, colleges, and streets [4].
Poet Lucille Clifton encountered a situation that had attempted to abolish history, and she was greatly offended by that attempt—so offended that she wrote this poem about this issue! Clifton has remarked, “You see, we cannot ignore history. History doesn’t go away. The past isn’t back there, the past is here too.”
After being asked, “Is it part of poetry’s job to recover history, to proclaim it, and to correct it when necessary?,” she responded, “Yes. All that may be needed is that the injustice in the world be mentioned so that nobody can ever say, ‘Nobody told me’.”
W. H. Auden once quipped in his tribute poem, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” [5], “Poetry makes nothing happen.” However, sometimes in quiet ways that may snowball into movements, poetry may be able to start the ball rolling, and one might hope that Clifton’s little verse may serve to save history lessons from disappearance.
at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989
among the rocks at walnut grove your silence drumming in my bones, tell me your names.
nobody mentioned slaves and yet the curious tools shine with your fingerprints. nobody mentioned slaves but somebody did this work who had no guide, no stone, who moulders under rock.
tell me your names, tell me your bashful names and I will testify.
the inventory lists ten slaves but only men were recognized.
among the rocks at walnut grove some of these honored dead were dark some of these dark were slaves some of these slaves were women some of them did this honored work. tell me your names foremothers, brothers, tell me your dishonored names.
here lies here lies here lies here lies hear
Reading: Lucille Clifton reading her poem, “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989”
Commentary on “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989”
This poem is voicing its plaintive lament that there was no mention of slavery during a tour the poet took of Walnut Grove Plantation in South Carolina in 1989. The omission is particularly galling because the place is a plantation in the South.
The history of such a place would be replete with information about that heinous institution. Simply ignoring an issue because it is unpleasant can do more harm than good. No problem was ever solved by ignoring it.
First Stanza: Addressing a Ghost-Like Presence
among the rocks at walnut grove your silence drumming in my bones, tell me your names.
In “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989,” the speaker addresses the ghost-like presences of the imagined slaves about which she knows nothing.
She is convinced that there had to be slaves on this large plantation that was thriving in the early nineteenth century. She dramatically claims that the silence of the slaves was “drumming / in [her] bones.” And she asks them to “tell [her] [their] names.”
Second Stanza: Intuiting a Presence
nobody mentioned slaves and yet the curious tools shine with your fingerprints. nobody mentioned slaves but somebody did this work who had no guide, no stone, who moulders under rock.
The speaker has likely come to take the plantation tour hoping to get a sense of the slaves that she believed worked there. She fancies that even though the tour guide has never mentioned slaves, she feels that she is intuiting their presence. Even though she did not hear the word “slave,” the very tools that are present seem to testify that slave left their fingerprints on them.
Since “somebody” had to have done that work, she reasons that it had to be the slaves. The owners of the plantation, Charles and Mary Moore, had ten children; those “fingerprints” may also be from those children who likely also worked on the plantation. Still, the speaker’s intuition allows her to create her speculative drama as she assumes that those slaves now “moulder[ ] under rock.”
Third Stanza: Who Are You?
tell me your names, tell me your bashful names and I will testify.
The speaker then begs the ghosts to tell her their names, and she “will testify” for them. Her testimony may not be thorough, but as least it is more than the nothing at all she is receiving from this historically filtered tour.
If the slaves existed, they lived and worked as such. Perhaps, she wishes simply to cite their names, which is an admirable thought, despite the impossibility of ever knowing those names.
Fourth Stanza: Proof of Their Existence
the inventory lists ten slaves but only men were recognized.
The speaker then reports that the list of “inventory” did mention ten male slaves. This possible factoid affords the female speaker another issue over which to express indignation: that the female slaves are not even listed as inventoried property.
Fifth Stanza: Slaves in the Cemetery
among the rocks at walnut grove some of these honored dead were dark some of these dark were slaves some of these slaves were women some of them did this honored work. tell me your names foremothers, brothers, tell me your dishonored names.
The speaker then muses that in the cemetery some of those buried must be slaves, and, of course, some of those slaves were women. They all did “honored work.” Again, the speaker demands of the imagined ghostly presences that they reveal their names.
They were “foremothers, brothers,” and she wants to know their “dishonored names.” They are “dishonored” because the speaker does not know their names and has no hope of finding out exactly who they were. While revision of historical facts remains an abomination, total erasure from the historical record is even worse.
Sixth Stanza: Who Lies Buried Here?
here lies here lies here lies here lies hear
The final five lines of the poem repeat the line “here lies” four times and ends with “hear.” She would like to add a name to each line, but since she is unable to do so, she offers one last command: she wants them to “hear” that she would honor them if she could.
CLIFTON: Well, let me tell you what happened with that poem. I went to Walnut Grove Plantation in South Carolina in 1989 and I was the only person of color on the tour. It’s a wonderful two thousand acres, but on the tour there was no mention of slaves. The plantation had the original furniture, and the guide talked about the difficulty of the work for a small family, but there was no mention of slavery. Now I’m very nosy–I want to know everything when I travel to give readings, all the gossip, everything. I like to know what happened here, so I always ask about the people who were here before these people? And then the uncomfortable question always is “Where are they now?”
Well, Walnut Grove Plantation has the family burying ground, and on the sides of the roped-off path leading to that burying ground there are crosses and rocks and other things sitting on edge that to me clearly mark the graves of slaves. So I asked, “Why don’t you mention slaves?” The first answer was “Maybe the guide didn’t want to embarrass you.” “Well,” I said, “I’m not a slave. I don’t know why he would think I’d be embarrassed.” Then I asked again, and the answer was, “Maybe they didn’t have any.” Well, they had two thousand acres in South Carolina in the early part of the nineteenth century. Be serious!
When I suggested that the guide check the inventory–because slaves were considered property and were often inventoried–they discovered that the plantation had an inventory of ten slaves, but they might have had more because women weren’t counted. Now, well, I had to find out about that! I mean, some things say, hey, like “No!” Then when I learned that the women were not considered valuable enough to inventory, I definitely wanted to write about that.
MOYERS: What do you want the readers to do at the end of the poem when you change the word “here” to “hear”?
CLIFTON: I want them to recognize that only half the truth was being told. At that time schoolchildren were taken there on field trips to Walnut Grove, and half the children in the town were denied the knowledge that their ancestors had helped to build that plantation. That is unjust, and I’m into justice big-time.
I read that poem in South Carolina a lot, and someone in the audience–I think she was the director of the group which has restored the plantation–wrote me a letter saying that she just didn’t realize. Two years ago they began building a model slave cabin, and now they are going to include all the people who lived there in the tour. So that’s one poem doing something, making a difference. Then once when I did a reading at the nearby town a woman came up and told me that her family had owned Walnut Grove, but she had never gone back—she was ashamed—so I said the next time I come here, we must go together. You see, we cannot ignore history. History doesn’t go away. The past isn’t back there, the past is here too.
MOYERS: Is it part of poetry’s job to recover history, to proclaim it, and to correct it when necessary?
CLIFTON: Yes. All that may be needed is that the injustice in the world be mentioned so that nobody can ever say, “Nobody told me.”
Hod Putt chafed at his low station in life as an unsuccessful laborer who never seemed able to get ahead. His intense envy of those who were successful lead him down a path to perdition.
Introduction and Text of “Hod Putt”
The deceased inhabitants of the fictional village of Spoon River in Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, Spoon River Anthology, are finally free to let loose their venom on whoever crossed them in life. They now feel free to testify, but their testimony is only their side of it. They can say whatever they like without being rebuked, reprimanded, or criticized.
The advantage of this kind of scenario, masterfully crafted by the poet, is that the dead people have the same stage to make their claims. The study thus reveals differing points of view, even as the individual speakers sometimes focus on similar circumstances.
The Spoon River character study begins with an epitaph featuring the character “Hod Putt,” which qualifies as a versanelle, a short, pithy verse with a gripping punch offering a glimpse at human nature. The poem delivers that interesting punch as it reveals a truth about human nature and its desire to justify the unjustifiable to flatter the ego.
Hod Putt
Here I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the bankrupt law And emerged from it richer than ever. Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth, Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For the which I was tried and hanged. That was my way of going into bankruptcy. Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side.
Commentary on “Hod Putt”
Apparently, considering himself a failure in life’s rat race for riches, this speaker Hod Putt envied those who were successful or at least more successful than he was.
From his perch in the afterworld, Putt attempts to improve his lack of substance by concocting an equivalence between his moral bankruptcy and the financial bankruptcy experienced by “Old Bill Piersol.”
Putt belongs to that classification of Spoon River inmates who try to assuage their own guilt by laying a thick blanket of culpability onto others. Readers can see clearly that these scofflaws are merely cutting off the heads of others so that they may appear to stand taller.
First Movement: Blinding Jealousy
Here I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the bankrupt law And emerged from it richer than ever.
Hod Putt informs his audience that his grave lies near the “grave / Of Old Bill Piersol.” He reports that Piersol was an Indian trader who became wealthy through his lucrative trade association.
Piersol, however, went bankrupt but then recovered his wealth quickly and grew “richer than ever”; these events cause Putt’s jealous nature to overcome his ability to think clearly.
Second Movement: A Double Felony
Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth, Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove,
Putt implies that he was somewhat lackadaisical with no deep interest in high achievement; just keeping bread on the table caused him to grow “tired of toil and poverty.” While not fond of work, he also found poverty inconvenient.
Putt assumed that “Old Bill and others” had used the system to become wealthy; thus he assumed he could also use the system for his own purposes. He, therefore, dreamed up a plan: instead of working for his pay, he would take from others. He began his new endeavor in crime by robbing a traveler “near Proctor’s Grove.”
Third Movement: Faulty Logic
Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For the which I was tried and hanged. That was my way of going into bankruptcy.
To Putt’s chagrin, he kills the victim while trying to take his property. This felony then gets Putt “tried and hanged.” Like any other act of faulty logic, he asserts that his act just constituted “bankruptcy.”
He, no doubt, believes he is clever in comparing his crimes to what he assumes to be the crimes of others, as he draw a moral equivalency between financial bankruptcy and moral bankruptcy. But his utterly counterfeit comparison to businessmen who declare legitimate bankruptcy according to the law demonstrates the criminal nature of Putt’s mind.
Fourth Movement: Morally Bankrupt
Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side.
Putt shows that he is morally bankrupt; he concocts a moral equivalency between his felonious crimes and those of successful men, in this case, Old Bill Piersol, who merely followed bankruptcy laws.
The smug Putt claims that he and Piersol “sleep peacefully side by side”; this claim implies that their “bankruptcies” are just the same.
A Two-Fold Felon
Readers will understand the difference between the two “bankruptcies”: Hod Putt is a criminal trying to vindicate himself while, in fact, revealing his felonious nature. Bankruptcy laws work within the legal system for those who declare bankruptcy.
The laws governing bankruptcy do not exist in order to encourage theft but to allow the unfortunate to place their financial endeavor on the path to recovery. Putt declares that he intended to rob a man, but while committing the robbery, he killed the man.
It is not likely that he intended to kill the man as he was committing his intensional felony. But then, because of the accidental killing, Putt becomes a two-fold felon, failing to even understand his criminal acts.
Now after death, he disingenuously claims to be “sleeping peacefully side by side” with Old Bill Piersol. In his own imagination, Putt is free to believe that his “sleep” after death and that of a legitimate businessman are the same.
But imagination does not make it so. The karma of all individuals dictates how well they rest—not how things may seem at any given time. Apparently, Putt remains blissfully unaware that karma will reckon with him—if not today, nor tomorrow, then sometime in future.
James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “Fifty Years,” recalls the struggle for civil rights in America that began with President Abraham Lincoln proclaiming the end of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Introduction and Text of “Fifty Years”
James Weldon Johnson begins his commemorative poem, “Fifty Years,” with the epigraph, “(1863–1913) On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.“
The speaker is paying homage to the many abolitionists who helped end slavery. And while many citizens still held the view that their black brothers and sisters should remain second class citizens, the speaker offers the rationale for the blessings of equality and respect among all citizens.
This speaker possesses a cosmic view of historical procedure, and he shares his awareness with his compatriots of all shades of skin color that God is always in control, and freedom must ring for those who seek it and work to maintain it—a view that remains as operative today as it did back in the early twentieth century.
Fifty Years
“(1863–1913) On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.“
O brothers mine, to-day we stand Where half a century sweeps our ken, Since God, through Lincoln’s ready hand, Struck off our bonds and made us men.
Just fifty years—a winter’s day— As runs the history of a race; Yet, as we look back o’er the way, How distant seems our starting place!
Look farther back! Three centuries! To where a naked, shivering score, Snatched from their haunts across the seas, Stood, wild-eyed, on Virginia’s shore.
This land is ours by right of birth, This land is ours by right of toil; We helped to turn its virgin earth, Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.
Where once the tangled forest stood,— Where flourished once rank weed and thorn,— Behold the path-traced, peaceful wood, The cotton white, the yellow corn.
To gain these fruits that have been earned, To hold these fields that have been won, Our arms have strained, our backs have burned, Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.
That Banner which is now the type Of victory on field and flood— Remember, its first crimson stripe Was dyed by Attuckss’ willing blood.
And never yet has come the cry— When that fair flag has been assailed— For men to do, for men to die, That we have faltered or have failed.
We’ve helped to bear it, rent and torn, Through many a hot-breath’d battle breeze Held in our hands, it has been borne And planted far across the seas.
And never yet,—O haughty Land, Let us, at least, for this be praised— Has one black, treason-guided hand Ever against that flag been raised.
Then should we speak but servile words, Or shall we hang our heads in shame? Stand back of new-come foreign hordes, And fear our heritage to claim?
No! stand erect and without fear, And for our foes let this suffice— We’ve bought a rightful sonship here, And we have more than paid the price.
And yet, my brothers, well I know The tethered feet, the pinioned wings, The spirit bowed beneath the blow, The heart grown faint from wounds and stings;
The staggering force of brutish might, That strikes and leaves us stunned and dazed; The long, vain waiting through the night To hear some voice for justice raised.
Full well I know the hour when hope Sinks dead, and ’round us everywhere Hangs stifling darkness, and we grope With hands uplifted in despair.
Courage! Look out, beyond, and see The far horizon’s beckoning span! Faith in your God-known destiny! We are a part of some great plan.
Because the tongues of Garrison And Phillips now are cold in death, Think you their work can be undone? Or quenched the fires lit by their breath?
Think you that John Brown’s spirit stops? That Lovejoy was but idly slain? Or do you think those precious drops From Lincoln’s heart were shed in vain?
That for which millions prayed and sighed, That for which tens of thousands fought, For which so many freely died, God cannot let it come to naught.
Commentary on “Fifty Years”
This speaker of this poem is offering a tribute to the struggle for civil rights in America that began with President Abraham Lincoln proclaiming the end of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation, as he cites several of the most noted abolitionists.
Stanza 1 – Stanza 3: Celebrating 50 Years Since the Emancipation Proclamation
James Weldon Johnson’s narrator of “Fifty Years” is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s affixing his signature to the Emancipation Proclamation [1], beginning the long process of ending slavery in the United States. The speaker addresses the sufferers of slavery as well as his own contemporaries, “brothers,” many who are the descendants of slaves.
Johnson’s speaker is dramatizing the signing the Emancipation Proclamation, implying that President Lincoln had erased the vicious practice of slavery and raised the status of the slaves to manhood—a status they had been denied.
The speaker looks back in time as he compares those “fifty years” to a “winter’s day.” Historically, fifty years is, indeed, short, but this half century has been like a very cold season of winter for this Africans and their descendants.
Johnson then takes the reader/listener even farther back in time with the disconcerting image of the slave standing, “naked, shivering,” who were “[s]natched from their haunts across the seas,” and who “[s]tood, wild-eyed, on Virginia’s shore.”
Stanza 4 – Stanza 6: Proudly Claiming a Heritage
Proudly and rightly, the speaker decrees, “this land is ours by right of birth”; he and his ancestors have developed the fallow earth with their “sweat,” which has resulted in “fruitful soil.”
Instead of merely,”tangled forest,” now, through their labor there are “peaceful wood,” cotton, and corn fields yielding valuable products for the American people. The speaker claims that to turn this nature-wild land into a domesticated home, “[o]ur arms have strained, our backs have burned, / Bent bare beneath a ruthless sun.”
Stanza 7 – Stanza 9: Dramatizing Patriotism
The speaker dramatizes the patriotism of his fellows who have died fighting for America even before it recognized them as equal patriots and full citizens. His allusion to Crispus Attucks [2], the first patriot to die in the American Revolutionary War, offers a stark reminder: “Remember, its first crimson stripe / Was dyed by Attucks’ willing blood.”
The speaker highlights the fact that Attucks died willingly for his country, not forced because he was a slave. He stresses that this race of American patriots has always stepped forward to defend America, even in foreign wars.
Stanza 10 – Stanza 12: They Have Already Secured Their Rights
The speaker is adamant in reporting to a land still roiled in racism (Johnson was writing this 1913) that at no time has “one black, treason-guided hand / Ever against that flag been raised.”
Because of the genuine qualities that his African American brothers and sisters have demonstrated since the founding of America, the speaker maintains that they do not deserve to “hang [their] heads in shame” or “speak but servile word,” or be timid in claiming their heritage as true, patriotic Americans.
Therefore, the speaker demands that his contemporaries, “stand erect and without fear.” They have procured the right to their “sonship here,” and they have tendered more than should be required of anyone.
The speaker never makes light of the black experience in America; he knows very well the physical and mental humiliation that his fellow patriots have suffered—as well as the broken spirit. He is aware of the deep levels of discouragement such treatment causes. He understands that there are always times that all one can rely on is prayer.
However, this speaker also understands that such oppression cannot endure. He, therefore, commands his listeners to become fearless and to look forward to the future and retain “[f]aith in your God-known destiny! / We are a part of some great plan.”
The speaker then alludes to William Lloyd Garrison [3] and Wendell Phillips [4], two strong abolitionists. He inquires, rhetorically, if his fellows believe that the “fire lit by their breath” could be snuffed out.
He further asks if his brothers can imagine that the spirit of John Brown [5] and Elijah Lovejoy [6] has become lifeless and departed. He wants them to consider the death of Abraham Lincoln [7] —did the great emancipator die “in vain”?
The speaker delivers an affirmation that all of those great abolitionists and the great emancipator did not resist only to die in vain.
He insists, “millions have prayed” for and “tens of thousands have fought” for and “many freely died,” so that dark-skinned people could know the equality they deserved. And of most importance, he treasures and maintains an abiding faith that, “God cannot let it come to naught.”
The Shakespearean speaker presents Orpheus as the embodiment of music’s power, showing how art, particularly music, has the ability to harmonize nature and relieve human suffering through its transformative, calming influence.
Introduction and Text of the “Shakespeare Lyric ‘Orpheus’”
Excerpted from Henry VIII (Act III, Scene 1), this brief lyric distills the ancient myth of Orpheus into a musing on the transformational and consolatory power of music.
The speaker expresses a vision in which art exerts a gentle but irresistible authority over nature itself, bringing harmony where there is chaos, motion where there is stillness, and rest where there is unrest.
The figure of Orpheus becomes less a mythological character than an emblem of art’s highest potential: to reshape the external world and quiet the inward life. I have employed the Orpheus ethos in my plea for more control and better expression in the art of poetry.
“Orpheus” (from Henry VIII – Act III, Scene 1)
Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountain tops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
Commentary on “The Shakespeare Lyric ‘Orpheus’”
In this Shakespeare excerpt that functions as a stand-alone poem, the speaker is alluding to the Greek mythological character Orpheus to celebrate music as a force of order, renewal, and inward healing. Orpheus was the god of music and poetry i Greek mythology.
Stanza 1: Music’s Powerful Influence
Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountain tops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring
The speaker opens with a striking assertion of music’s powerful influence over the natural world. The phrasing remains condensed, as though the act of music itself compresses time and causation. Trees and mountain tops do not merely respond; they are “made” or commanded to respond by bowing to the sound of Orphean singing.
This shaping force exerts itself to images of rigidity and lifeless cold. That mountain summits are called to “bow themselves” introduces a paradox: what is fixed becomes responsive, what is cold becomes animate, and what is elevated yields in humility.
The verb “bow” carries a dual resonance. It suggests both submission and grace, implying that nature’s response is not actually coerced but harmonized. The speaker presents music not as domination but as persuasion, a gentle authority that draws all things into alignment. Even the harshest elements—frozen peaks—are softened by sound, indicating that art reaches where physical force cannot.
The hyperbole exerted in these images is astounding, leading not to disbelief but to the famous Romantic assertion by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” After all, the purpose of exaggeration is only to emphasize a claim, not to make a melodramatic spectacle.
The stanza then shifts from gesture to growth: “plants and flowers / Ever sprung.” The effect is not momentary but continuous, captured in the word “ever.” Music generates an ongoing fertility, a perpetual blossoming that resists decay.
The comparison to “sun and showers” grounds this transformation in natural cycles, yet the phrase “lasting spring” exceeds ordinary seasonal change. Spring, typically transient, becomes permanent under the influence of music. The speaker thus elevates art above nature’s own processes, suggesting that while sun and rain produce life, music sustains it indefinitely.
The imagery moves from rigidity (mountains) to vitality (flowers), tracing a progression from stillness to generative abundance. The speaker’s syntax reinforces this flow, with lines that seem to unfold organically, mirroring the growth they describe. Music becomes both cause and condition of harmony, a principle that unifies disparate elements—earth, air, and life itself.
What emerges is not merely a portrait of Orpheus but an argument about art’s capacity to reconcile opposites: cold and warmth, height and humility, barrenness and fertility. The speaker implies that music achieves what nature alone cannot—a permanence of renewal, a “lasting spring” that suspends the ordinary limits of time and change.
Again, as in most successful art, the tension of the pairs of opposites makes an appearance. As the great Guru Paramahansa Yogananda has explained, the force of Maya, the very cause of the material level of being, works through the pairs of opposites.
Stanza 2: The Universal Influence of Music
Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
The second stanza broadens the scope from land to sea, extending the reach of music to “Every thing that heard him play.” The universality is emphatic; nothing remains outside the sphere of music’s influence.
While the first stanza emphasizes growth and animation, the second turns toward quieting and rest. The “billows of the sea,” emblematic of motion and unrest, are personified “h[anging] their heads and then l[ying] by.” The image suggests human beings becoming calm after turbulence, with ceaseless motion transforms into stillness.
The phrase “hung their heads” echoes the earlier “bow themselves,” reinforcing the motif of submission, yet here it carries a more subdued, almost weary connotation. The sea, often a symbol of emotional excess or instability, is brought into repose. The progression from bowing to lying still marks a deepening effect: music does not merely elicit acknowledgment; it also induces tranquility.
The final lines turn inward with even more gravity, shifting from the external world to the human condition: “care and grief of heart.” The speaker identifies these as persistent burdens, analogous to the restless sea.
Music’s power is now psychological and emotional, not merely physical. The phrase “killing care” is striking in its severity; music does not soothe lightly but eradicates distress at its root.
Yet the resolution is nuanced: care and grief either “fall asleep, or hearing, die.” The dual possibility suggests degrees of relief. Sleep implies temporary suspension, while death indicates permanent release. The ambiguity allows for a range of experience—music may offer respite or complete transformation. In either case, it alters the condition of suffering.
The line “In sweet music is such art” functions as a reflective statement, drawing together the stanza’s implications. “Sweet” emphasizes harmony and pleasure, but “art” underscores intention and craft. The speaker presents music as both aesthetic and efficacious, capable of shaping not only perception but feeling itself.
The movement of the stanza—from the vast sea to the inner heart—compresses the scale of influence, suggesting that the same force governs both realms. The calming of waves parallels the quieting of grief, establishing a correspondence between outer and inner worlds. Music becomes a mediating principle, aligning nature and human emotion within a single order of harmony.
The final stanza affirms that art’s highest function lies not merely in delight but in restoration. It brings the restless to rest, the troubled to peace, and in doing so, offers a vision of existence in which discord is not denied but resolved.
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