American Bard

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 939, 9 August 1957, Page 22

American Bard

TO hear Vachel Lindsay reading his "own poems was a remarkable revelation. Despite the imperfections of the primitive recording, which made LindSay sound at times as if he were speaking through a woollen blanket at the height of a blizzard, the well-known "The Congo" and "General Booth Enters Heaven" came across with a vitality they have never had before for me. Elocutionists’ "renderings" of "The Congo" have reduced it to the level of a trick-effect piece. But the author’s interpretation showed it to be a profoundly original work. Chanting, gabbling, droning, and even singing in places, he projected a sense of elemental terror, poetically incarnating the dark forces lurking beneath the veneer of civilisation. His voice, ringing from the dead, made it clear that he had been reaching towards a fresh conception of the music of poetry, towards a new bardic ideal. As he growled, spluttered, frizzled, smirked, glared, roared and sang through the crackles, I was reminded by turns of the father of Dada, of Dylan Thomas and of modern American minstrels. In these unusually interesting recordings, @ neglected poet of the past disclosed his still-vital intentions.