A History Lesson on Amy Lowell, Gangsta Rappers, the 1920’s, and The Greatest Generation (of poets) written by Edward Storm
The year was 1921 and Harriet Monroe has been on the scene for almost a decade with her new magazine called Poetry. Ms. Monroe has become a major figure in American Poetry. Poetry is published in a rough blue collar city known for the hog butchers and the dirty lake that it sits on. She is one of the lead proponents of the “new school” of poetry. This is no old school English style magazine that she runs nor is it published in a cosmopolitan city like London or Manhattan. No, this magazine is full of modern speech and the poems lack the end rhyme and measured types of rhyme of the past decades. The free verse movement is now at full speed and our first leader and super star is a woman named Amy Lowell. Amy was as radical a figure in poetry as someone like Nicki Minaj was several years ago when she burst onto the scene in hip-hop. Actually, that isn’t true. Amy was probably even more radical than Nicki. Maybe not quite as radical and bold at Cardi B walking about her WAP, or was she? Comparing the 1920’s with the 2020’s is challenging. However, one thing is for certain. Amy Lowell was forever changing the status quo of female independence. Her poem “Patterns” reads somewhat like a rap song in which the rapper is strutting her stuff and telling her audience about her decked out clothing and jewelry. “I walk down the patterned garden paths/In my stiff, brocaded gown/With my powdered hair and jeweled fan/I too am a rare. Yup, don’t get in this beauty’s way. She is a woman and she is unique as any man and she is independent.
The 1920’s were the beginning of a major revival of interest in American poetry. The coming decades would see the emergence of some of the greatest poets in history. Amy Lowell is one of them for sure, but there are many others, both female and male. What a time to be alive for poetry lovers. The same can be said for hip hop today. There are so many amazing rappers all producing work that is is hard to keep up with all of them. Lowell was leading the new poetry movement but other outstanding poets from different different movements. Ezra Pound and TS Eliot stand out more than anyone. World War I was a tragedy beyond all tragedies and the entire English speaking world was affected in a major way as were all the other centers of western poetry like Paris. The world grew up quickly as the result of WWI. The world seemed much smaller than it had just a decade before. No nation was safe from international disputes. The United States had always tried to be an independent place that lived in isolation from Europe’s problems and conflicts. Leadership in the United Stated failed to stay isolated and was to put back together all branches of the military after huge cuts in the years of economic prosperity which the nation has enjoyed ever since reconstruction has ended. The wonders of the modern age where upon us and so were the horrors of the modern age. Cars and airplanes began to connect all the states together in America. However reports of the brutality of the war front in Europe made humankind seem less sophisticated than ever before. TS Eliot wrote his masterpiece “The Wasteland” about WWI during this time period. Lowell wrote another masterpiece during this same decade about a fallen husband who dies in battle during the war. “ And I answered, “It shall be as you have said/ Now he is dead” and to end the poem she wrote “In a pattern called a war/Christ! What are patterns for?”.
Who was out there making a name during these years and in the few decades to come? Well, Robert Frost, Carl Sandberg, Wallace Stevens, Weldon Kees, Elizabeth Bishop, WIliam Carlos WIlliams, Dorothy Parker, ee Cummings, Paul Dunbar, and many others. A large class of poets were born in the 1880’s and 90’s and would live long lives into their 80’s. Frost, WIliams, Sevens, Sasson, Parker, Bynner, Sandberg, and Eliot would all live into their 70s or 80s. This is pretty amazing considering that America was just at the dawn of modern medicine. This group of men and women made modern poetry what it is today. WHen this generation of poets was born no houses had electric lights in America and transportation was via the horse. When this generation died off America was putting men in space and had endured and won two world wars. Poetry written before this time period and after this group of poets had died can often seem stiff and lacking action. Well, there is a reason for that. The world was transformed into modern times in the lifespan of a single man. Some of the greatest literature in world history came out of this time period. Hardship inspires great art. This is a sad truth is it not?
