In a collection of stories, letters, poems, and speeches, I happened across Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It immediately brought a smile, evoking a memory of class memorization from elementary school, which occurred longer ago than I care to think. I can hear myself and my fellow fifth graders reciting in unison, some of us (overachiever Mary Ellen comes to mind) reciting louder to show mastery of the poem, while a few others mumbled to disguise what they hadn’t learned. I was somewhere in the middle but leaning in the direction of Mary Ellen’s loudness.
After I reread the poem, remembering some of the stanzas, I checked back with a Tweetspeak Poetry post from 2017, which took a look at “America’s most patriotic poem.” The Atlantic published Longfellow’s poem in January 1861, long after Revere’s famous ride (although much about that ride remains in historical dispute today). And then I went looking for what was happening when Longfellow wrote and published that poem.
Longfellow about the time he wrote “Paul Revere’s Ride”
Several Southern states had seceded; others would follow shortly. Federal forts in Southern states were being seized by Confederates. President-elect Lincoln declared slavery in the already seceded states to be unlawful (although James Buchanan was still president). New York City’s mayor proposed that New York become a free city, trading with both North and South. Three months before the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, a merchant ship was fired upon as it tried to bring supplies to the fort. The United States was coming apart.
Longfellow reached back 86 years to an event that had become part of America’s national myth and wrote his poem. The poet had already been writing poetry grounded in American history, with long epic poems like Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858).
“Paul Revere’s Ride” is a much shorter poem than Longfellow’s epics. It’s a poem about impending military danger, but it’s more than that. It’s a poem about personal courage in the face of military danger. And that’s what Longfellow was urging upon his fellow Americans in early 1861. Three months later, armed conflict erupted at Fort Sumter.
Going on from Longfellow, I reread I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman, actually published the year before the Paul Revere poem, in 1860. And then the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), inscribed on a plaque in the Statue of Liberty. And then I went back earlier, to Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), a former slave whose poetry was published in both Britain and America. Her best-known poem is “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” but she also wrote a number of patriotic poems, including one for George Washington. Wheatley and Washington had an ongoing correspondence, and in one letter, she referred to America as “Columbia,” the first American known to do so. And then she used it again in a poem written in honor of Washington.
His Excellency General Washington
Phillis Wheatley
Celestial choir! enthron’d in realms of light,
Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light
Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!
The Goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel binds Her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber’d charms and recent graces rise.
Muse! Bow propitious while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates,
As when Eolus heaven’s fair face deforms,
Enwrapp’d in tempest and a night of storms;
Astonish’d ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore;
Or think as leaves in Autumn’s golden reign,
Such, and so many, moves the warrior’s train.
In bright array they seek the work of war,
Where high unfurl’d the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough thou know’st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honors—we demand
The grace and glory of thy martial band.
Fam’d for thy valour, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!
One century scarce perform’d its destined round,
When Gallic powers Columbia’s fury found;
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!
Fix’d are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia’s arm prevails.
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! Cruel blindness to Columbia’s state!
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.
Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! Be thine.
My fifth-grade class and countless others learned and recited poems like “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Each school day started with the Pledge of Allegiance. Music included singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “America the Beautiful.” We can argue endlessly about how inclusive it was or wasn’t, but these types of poems and songs permeated elementary schools and clearly shaped our minds, attitudes, and sensibilities.
You can find examples of patriotic poems in the early 20th century, especially connected to World War I (when newspapers printed poems daily) and a very few as late as World War II. But the era of patriotic poems seems to close at mid-century. If anything, the poems about America became less mythic, less laudatory, more critical, and even darker. The times became less conducive to patriotism; the Cold War, the possibility of nuclear war, the tumult of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, oil embargoes, both Iraq wars, changing academic interests, and our increasingly polarized politics all appear to have dampened expressions of patriotism.
Can you name a patriotic poem from the last 20 years—without looking it up? I can’t.
My class reciting “Paul Revere’s Ride,” led by the loud voice of Mary Ellen, seems a very distant memory.
Related:
America’s Best-Known Patriotic Poem
What Freedom Means to You (and Me)
Photo by Steve Corey, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest, A Light Shining, Dancing King, and the forthcoming Dancing Prophet, and Poetry at Work.
__________________________
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Donna Falcone says
That is a really interesting question. My hunch is they’ve been written but will remain hidden until after their author’s death. They’ll be found by a loved one exploring journals left behind, written alongside entries about civil unrest and the polarization of our nation.
Just a hunch 😉
Great post, Glynn.
Glynn says
I like the idea of hidden poems, waiting patiently in notebooks, files, and “the cloud” for the opportunity to be born. The idea suggests an idea for a poem, or two.
I tried imagining a patriotic poem being published in Poetry Magazine, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker, and I just couldn’t see it. And you’re right: these are not the times for patriotic poems, or perhaps they’re the times when the need for patriotic poems is greatest.
Donna Falcone says
I agree! That’s why I think they’re written, albeit secretly. This going underground is also necessary, as it shows us where we hide and, if we’re lucky and brave (or foolish -it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes), why.
Will Willingham says
Mary Ellen made me laugh. 🙂
It’s interesting to watch the progression here, and the definite change in tone mid-20th century. What I’m wondering is if there is a formal definition of “patriotic poem,” or if it’s a “know it when I see it” kind of thing which is going to be more subjective depending on the reader? In many ways I might find Wheatley’s “On Being Brought From Africa to America” to be one of her patriotic pieces. And I would probably be one who finds some of those more sober, even darker, works of the late 20th century/early 21st to be patriotic as well, but maybe not in the same way as we view the earlier works. The experience of those writing the poems that are rising to the surface now is quite different than those writing the earlier works, and the nature of the (literal) wars (and cultural battles) we were fighting were also quite different. I’d be fascinated to see how some of that is read 100 years from now, and what kind of category those poems land in. 🙂
Maureen says
LW, your question re “patriotic poetry” sent the Poetry Doctor to Edward Hirsch’s tome ‘A Poet’s Glossary’. No definition there, though you’ll find an explanation for just about anything else. Next, the Poetry Doctor went down the Rabbit Hole, aka the Web, and found this:
“Poetry and Patriotism” circa 1915: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-VUW1915_28Spik-t1-body-d4.html
Apparently, patriotism is the inspiration, not the thing.
Glynn says
That’s a good point, Maureen. And it likely relates to shared understanding, or consensus, or shared beliefs, and certainly a shared resonance or receptivity.
Maureen says
Glynn, re your question to name a patriotic poem. I’m terrible at remembering names but I’ve run on my WWP blog a number of poems for the 4th of July that surely could be said to be patriotic. Check out one by Alberto Rios, for example. Also, 9/11 was occasion for a number of such poems. I think the Library of Congress has even compiled a list of them.
L.L. Barkat says
Fun question, to which I am happy to say…
I can! 🙂
Okay, not precisely 20 years. But still within pretty modern times. In fact, it might be the most patriotic poem ever written (IMHO), since it acknowledges the foibles but still asserts the love. And, it reminds us that patriotism is not expressed in violence but in looking each other in the eye with respect and somehow a sense that this country is a gift that gives us life (and so we can, with even the simple words, not hard to memorize: “Good morning,” come to each day with gratitude for the land and for our mutual place in it).
It would be a poem worth having classrooms everywhere memorize at least the end of. And, if not the handful of sentences at the end, then, as I noted, at least “Good morning.” Wouldn’t that be something? If we greeted each other and the day with that—every single day? A small phrase might go a long way.
Donna Falcone says
Oh wow that is wonderful. Thank you for dropping it here! What a gift she will always be to the world. ❤️
Sandra Heska King says
Love!
Laura Brown says
There are other poems written for presidential inaugurations, but probably none better than hers. I remember James Dickey reading “The Strength of Fields,” written for Carter’s inauguration. It’s quite a stretch to see it as a patriotic poem, but it does have these lines. And the end is all about kindness.
You? I? What difference is there? We can all be saved
By a secret blooming.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42714/the-strength-of-fields
Sandra Heska King says
I remember reciting the pledge. I also remember our fifth grade teacher, Mr. C, making us place our right hands on our hearts “I pledge allegiance to the” and then when we said “flag,” we had to thrust out our arm toward it with our palm upraised for the rest of the pledge. (This was the same teacher who got fired for being too friendly with the girls.)
I think you were the one who originally posted this video of these kids reciting Paul Revere’s ride.
http://ericmetaxas.com/blog/these-kids-made-my-day/
L.L. Barkat says
Maureen, I wonder if you could point us directly to the Alberto Rios poem you’re thinking of? Thanks. 🙂
Also, I woke up this morning and said the Pledge of Allegiance aloud to the empty air. Then I sang, in my mind, the first verse of “America the Beautiful.” (I love that song—or, rather, I love most of it and the swelling sounds are incomparable. Okay, so then I had to record it for you, Glynn, despite that I am no singer: https://soundcloud.com/l-l-barkat/america-the-beautiful-1st-verse 🙂 )
Then I considered the ways the Pledge and the song are non-inclusive, and I mused on the thought that we could argue endlessly about inclusivity, and I thought, yes, we could—the interesting question is why. To which, a few things came to mind…
***
This morning (evening there, I suppose), I doubt that anyone in North Korea is arguing about inclusivity.
O beautiful for spacious skies… from sea to shining sea (so much room in this country—the image is one of “room for all”)
And liberty and justice for all (we’ve set an impossibly high ideal in this country, but I would rather *that* than being in NK this morning, not considering the question of inclusivity).
All men (needs to be updated, which is what happens when you hold impossibly high ideals that suggest inclusivity from the get-go) are created equal
***
One of the very difficult questions is how to preserve the best from the past while folding in the insights of the present. In the heat of our arguments, and unsure of what to do, sometimes we throw the baby out with the bath water or tire of the possibility of ever being able to settle upon something that could serve our “dream of a common language.” It is worth it, I think, to preserve some of the best from the past and, without replacing it with darkness, find new light, new language—knowing, even, that this will eventually go through its own sifting process (we could, for instance, already sift Angelou’s poem at just 25 years out from its creation). I think this is okay. I think this is part of what makes us America. Bravery is not just for the battlefield, but for the bold charge to continually work towards our societal ideals: liberty, justice, spaciousness, beauty.
I want to be brave with all of you. 🙂
Donna Falcone says
🙂 Me too.
And I loved hearing your voice – I sang with you and this brought a tear to my eye.
Sandra Heska King says
I want to be brave with you, too. And to sing on Soundcloud is super brave. Beautiful.
About “all men.” Would it be awful to say that phrase does not bother me at all? Is it brave of me to say that? Because its original meaning apparently comes from a word that means human. Sometimes I think we take things (like inclusive language) little too far. (Now should I duck from the tomatoes?)
Donna Falcone says
I think you’re brave. No tomatoes here. 😉
Donna Falcone says
Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app that would let us add our voice to another? I guess that would mean adding tracks, which might be really complicated to create but awesome to use. Then we could sing together any time, over any distance.
Sandra Heska King says
Whew!
And yes, I thought the same thing about adding or splicing our voices.
Oh Laura… consider this a barista brainstorm. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Or… we could sing over Zoom… Sights and sound.
Donna Falcone says
That would be just too sweet for words! Faces and voices? Be still my heart.
Maureen says
Rios was a recipient of a Walt Whitman award. The poem I’m thinking of is alled ‘Day of the Refugios’; it’s from his ‘Celebrate America in Poetry and Art’:
writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2010/07/alberto-rios-poem-for-july-4.html
Donna Falcone says
Thanks Maureen. This is so rich.
Glynn says
L.L. – that recording! I listened to the words and then I listened to the tones. The words are, of course, familiar. The tones are serious, almost somber. It’s wonderful. It’s the way the song should be sung at this moment, almost like an elegy.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to language lately; specifically, how our use of language seems to be becoming more violent. Our politics has become the politics of outrage, and our language reflects that. And politics is downstream from the culture. We’ve gone through these periods before, but we didn’t have the power and reach of social media to amplify the outrage through every level of society. And the language of outrage is becoming action.
Singing “America the Beautiful” in the environment we currently have is an act of bravery.
L.L. Barkat says
Social media also has the power to spread kindness and beauty. And, there are social movements that involve kindness and beauty, that can also be amplified (we should consider highlighting them here at Tweetspeak as a counterpoint). Person to person, we have the power to say “Good morning,” and that stands. I’m thinking of Tippett’s interview of Lederach now, again, and how he sees (globally) the disconnections between political rhetoric and the everyday. The first is often all or nothing. The other has room for nuance and discussion. Though I would love to see politics be more expansive, I’ll not hold my breath on that one. The work of goodness must go on, despite a particular segment’s narrow approach.
Laura Brown says
Good morning.
I remember reciting the pledge of allegiance in grade school, too. And singing “America the Beautiful” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” and “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean” and the national anthem and other America songs when Miss Slavin came for our weekly music time. They were all also in the music book that came with a melodica I got for Christmas one year.
What could we pledge together today? What could we sing together? Singing is such an embodied communal pledge — voice, breath, muscles and lungs. Many bodies, many voices, into one voice, one body. All this kind of makes me want to go to a high school football game Friday night and sing the national anthem with everyone else in the stands. That may be one of the few places where such a thing still happens.
Donna Falcone says
I love what you say, and ask, Laura.
Donna Falcone says
The phrase brave new world comes to mind…. maybe bc of social media’s challenges. I think sometimes when we say it’s a brave new world I it means this feels like falling and the world is simply one person at a time trying to gauge the landing, separately and/or not.
This post and all the sharing is why TSP is so special. Usually I try to limit my exposure to comment boxes, but here the comment boxes are not to be missed! They are juicy and life giving.
Megan Willome says
I did not grow up saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I have a strong memory of being in elementary school when the hostages were released from Iran, and the principal came in the classroom and wanted to lead us in the pledge. None of us knew it. But it was printed on my pencil box, so I flipped it open so I could cheat.
Not sure when I finally learned it.
L.L. Barkat says
Curiosity question that just won’t go away: what is it that seems problematic about inclusivity?
Also, and this might be a surprising suggestion for some—is it possible that rather than inclusivity being a philosophical or political issue it can often be a personality preference? Introvert as opposed to extravert point of view?
I ask because my eldest daughter is one of the most generously inclusive people I know, and yet, if she encounters a conversation where people are, from her viewpoint, “going on about it,” she suddenly seems to display a counter viewpoint (ie, inclusivity schmimclusivity). She’s an uber introvert, of the “you don’t need to look at me or include me” kind. So, it made me think harder about the inclusivity issue and why it feels bothersome to some people. Thoughts?
Laura Brown says
I’m not sure what you’re asking, but I’ll venture this, broadly (though I don’t like being so abstract): the absence of a named group or identity does not necessarily mean either intentional or accidental exclusion; and the presence of a named group or identity does not necessarily mean de facto inclusion.
L.L. Barkat says
Thank you, Laura. 🙂
I’m partly asking after the discomfort part, or the putting away part. To say we could argue endlessly is possibly to suggest discomfort with the idea or possibly to suggest that it’s not worth discussing (that it should be put away or put to rest).
I like how your thoughts begin to plumb the discomfort. Maybe the discomfort of feeling accused of something unintended? Ultimately, if the idea were to be finally put to rest, what would help that happen, then?
Laura Brown says
Might it also mean we can argue without reaching agreement, and let our allegiance to our argument eclipse our allegiance to country or to one another as members of the same national community?
The language “argue endlessly” came up in connection with the Star-Spangled Banner and “America the Beautiful.” So the “we can argue, but” might also mean this: For those of us who grew up singing those and saying the pledge without question, it was formative in our understanding of patriotism, and probably still stirs feelings of patriotism (even if we now get itchy about implications of some of the lyrics).
I’m also thinking of the contention that one verse of the former endorses slavery. We can argue about what Francis Scott Key meant; we can argue about whether, even unintended, it ruins the song as an anthem for all. (We can also argue that its range and where it is usually pitched makes it excruciatingly hard to sing.)
So, in accord with our “difficult conversations,” we might ask others (or ourselves) about the source of discomfort, just to understand. And then we can say, well. it’s the song we have now, imperfect as it is; can we put those arguments to rest and find common ground to move forward as fellow Americans?
(To clarify: put arguments about a song to rest, agree and lament that some residents and citizens of this country have always felt excluded from “land of the free,” and then try to find common ground?)
L.L. Barkat says
I love thinking with you on this, Laura, though I believe it’s important that Glynn consider addressing the question, since I can theorize about a writer’s intention, but I can’t actually know unless I hear it.
And the reason I am interested in hearing it is because Tweetspeak is a place where we can have honest, if difficult, conversations and, at the end of the day, respect each other more, not less, for having had the conversations. This feels so important to me as a counterpoint to what generally goes on in difficult conversations across the Internet—where people are quite sure they already know what everybody thinks and intends (and so they act accordingly, not displaying curiosity, but only speaking louder and louder to one another in an effort to drown each other out… why?).
(Btw, since I’m not a person who follows sports, I wasn’t aware of the current goings-on in regard to the Star-Spangled Banner, so I came into the discussion and posed my question without that background or any feelings associated with it. With that additional knowledge, I still have the question, but I also come to it now with my own feelings of deep disappointment: I want there to be something we can sing together, say together, that rises above our inevitable differences and says, “This country, despite its struggles towards reaching its ideals, has unique national ideals worth celebrating. America, in her best iteration, has something, yes, beautiful, to give to the world, besides just export goods.”)
Anyway, I don’t want to assume I understand what was intended here, because when I assume I almost always miss some important or surprising nuance, and I miss the chance to grow. Which is also a Tweetspeak value. Smart, fun, life-giving. That’s us. Life always expects and allows for growth. 🙂
Glynn says
Ah, the intentions of the writer.
I wrote, or, more accurately, rewrote the post three times. It originated in a troubled spirit — my own. I’ve been troubled about many things happening in our country, but what I was most conscious of was the growing violence of the language we use. The violence isn’t only the substance of words, phrases, and ideas circulating through public discourse, but also the anger with which they’re expressed. The anger can be overt, and it can be controlled. But it is still anger. Something, or somethings, is fueling it. And it is shaping and coloring and changing everything that happens.
It isn’t only social media that’s facilitating this. The mainstream news media is doing it as well. And it isn’t only Fox, CNN and MSNBC. My own local newspaper is doing this.
Everyone wants to point to President Trump as the source and the cause, but this was already happening years before Trump announced he was running for President. Politics is downstream from the culture, and it was the culture that was changing.
I used the idea of patriotism as a starting point. I don’t define it as taking or not taking a knee when the national anthem is played at a football game. I also don’t define it as “my country right or wrong.” My definition is more in the direction of “this is our country, and we have a vested interest in seeing our country flourish and thrive, we have a shared history, and we have a shared concern for its future.” The words that seem to be most in danger are “we” and “shared.”
L.L. Barkat says
So it sounds like there’s a good deal of frustration and sadness around the loss (or potential loss) of “we” and “shared.”
And I am thinking now of what John Gottman notes happens, more often than not, when couples go to couples therapy (the kind where they endlessly discuss their problems instead of focusing on what they know they have loved about each other in the past, what their strengths and possibilities are). More often than not, they devolve into a cycle of contempt that then leads to break-up. (Who would expect this from therapy?! 🙂 ) Of course, the couple that goes to therapy has already been experiencing problems, but.
If I’m reading it right, what you wish for is less therapy, more affirmation, more celebration, more remembrance of the good? Not to say, of course, that problems shouldn’t be discussed. But there’s a needed balance. This brings us back to Laura’s question. What can we sing together, say together?
Perhaps the Tweetspeak community should take on the challenge of writing the songs and poems for this new time. Also, we’ve begun the By Heart community, and it has, undergirding it, exactly these hopes in mind: Epic, beautiful, wise words we can say together. I’d love to see By Heart become much bigger than just us. Also, I still have it in mind to do that 50 States Project, which needs to be conceptualized more. But its soul is “we” and “shared” across a variant landscape that makes up one amazing America.
As for the emotion of anger, I don’t see it as bad necessarily. I always think of emotions as red flags that can lead us to attend to important things. But anger (or any other emotion) that is not handled towards problem solving also leads to contempt. And, contempt kills. Our Difficult Conversations book club theme this week is going to be The Feelings Conversation. Couldn’t seem more timely. Beyond sharing our challenging feelings though is still that need, yes, to remember to share the good ones along the way, if we hope to survive.
Let’s keep working towards that at Tweetspeak—I mean, outwards towards society? What a gift to have that as a possible mission, if we continue to choose to accept it. 🙂
L.L. Barkat says
Oh, and tiny aside to your small detour over to DT. If I were his mom, I’d say the same thing I said to my other kids who may or may not have been responsible for starting what had been started in any given situation… “Don’t become part of the problem; become part of the solution” and “don’t add fuel to the fire.”
#momwisdom 🙂