Word: wheelwright
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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POLITICAL SELF-PORTRAIT-John Wheelwright-firuce Humphries...
Poetry and politics do not seem like strangers to each other in Wheelwright's book, because its author had no doubt whatever that political freedom and verbal truth are the interrelated objectives of every wide-awake, decent man on earth. Political Self-Portrait is a kind of rebel's hornbook, full of references to the doctrines and deeds of those who Wheelwright felt have most signally helped-and hindered-truth-telling and liberty. On the angels' side, among others, are Prometheus, Jesus Christ, and the old Rev. John. On the other side may be found Cain, Stalin...
...Wheelwright's verse makes hard, sometimes impenetrable, reading. His somewhat pampered, ingrown learning keeps cropping out in it like rocks in a hill field. Fortunately, he had the equipment of a nature poet, in a land where freedom is in the air rather than in books. His landscapes can be just right...
...that major spiritual crossroads where all true poets stand, Wheelwright can take his place...
...Beecher and Wheelwright are poets of vastly different stripes but of the same cloth. Each is a product, and a proponent, of the great, unfinished American Rebellion. Each is trying to make the living god jibe with brass tacks...