The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-02-15
poEMs For woRKERs. Edited BY

POEMS FOR WORKERS. Edited by
Manuel Gomez. Number 5 of The
Little Red Library. The Daily
Worker Publishing Co., $40.
a title like Poems for Workers
"A implies, first, that poetry in gen
elal can be appreciated by workers,
and second, that there are specific
poems or a specific type Of poetry
that make a special appeal to work
crs. The first of these ideas is GER
tainly unconventional. College pro-
lessons and graduates of the five
foot shelf will say: try to talk poetry
to workers! But they forget that
poetry, like all the art forms, had Its
Origins in the mass activities of early
peoples. And 1t was the coming OF
the capitalist system and particularly
It's most vicious Towering, the united
otates, that was to a large extent
responsible for the abortive divorce
OF art from the life OF the masses.
Manuel Gomez believes that you
can talk poetry TO workers, that
workers can talk poetry to them
selves. He points out in his intro
auction that his anthology is the first
OF its kind in the Engnsh language.
All other collections, IKE Upton SIN
Chairs The Cry Tor Justice" have
gathered together primarily poems
aDout workers. 1t is true that not
ali the writers assembled here are
themselves workers. some Ike oieg
tired Sassoon, Tor example, nave
really no direct relation with the
working class. But practically all of
these poems are written Ill a IAN
guage and from point of view that
are close to the understanding and
che lite of the workers OF America.
Some Of the poems are good and
some are bad. Gomez makes II plaln
mat the collection is personal and
arbitrary. 1t might have been ex-
banded into portly volume dressed
IN an elegant binding anu i post-inl-
pressionistic jacket. 1t might have
sold for So instead OF ~ .en,s ana
been reviewed in all the best maya
zines. 1t might even nave Lecone (,
topic for esInetic table-tapplngs in
atmospheric" wine-cellars where po-
etry is once more made virgin. but
it wouldn't have reached the people
Tor whom it was intended, the men
who dig our coal and Dulld our
bridges and do most of the hard
boiled, dreary, 1lnpoetical work of the
world.
Since the anthology is frankly ar
bitrary, it is perhaps useless to criti
CHE the selections Gomez has made.
Carl Sandburg is hardly represented
at his best, nor are Michael Gold and
Jim Waters, who has written better
stuff than this for The DAILY
WORKER. But any reader can be
thankful for the inclusion of two
poems not usually met with in an
thologies: Edward O'Connor's impu-
dent and gaily pathetic hobo song,
Nobody knows and Arturo Clio
vannitti's when the Cock Crows.
This wild dark tale of a midnight
lynching is, in my opinion, one of the
great poems of the English language.
1t is a leaping prophecy and a
scourge. There is nothing like it in
English unless it be the same poets
"The Walker" which falls short of
its fierce, gigantic eloquence. Mil
tons "Avenge, o Lord, Thy Slaught7
cred Saints is rhetorical in COMPARE
son and William Ellery Leonard's
"The Lynching Bee" seems stilted
and literary. We must go back to
the Old Testament prophets to find
its equal. The poem is desperately
real and its denunciation and scorn
and lyrical madness burn markedly
into the mind. And it is a poem
which comes close to the deepest emo
lions of most workers. A. b. MAGIL