many U.S. poets joined the efforts of anti-fascists during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39

communism vs. modernism?

• audio: Al Filreis describes the transition from the "high modernism" of the teens and twenties to the radical politics of the thirties, with examples from Isidor Schneider, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and William Carlos Williams, with readings from the poetry by Shawn Walker
• Edwin Rolfe, "Season of Death"
• Genevieve Taggard, "Interior"
• David Greenhood, "Bread Winners" (1935)
• Ruth Lechlitner, "Lines for an Abortionist's Office"
• overview of the Sacco & Vanzetti case
• Thomas Mann on the word and social responsibility in a time of fascism (1937)
• Max Eastman, "Modernist Poetry"
• Max Eastman's critique of Gertrude Stein, from his anti-modernist essay, "The Cult of Unintelligibility" (1935)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Two Sonnets in Memory"
• William Carlos Williams, "Late for Summer Weather" (1935)
• William Carlos Williams, "The Yachts" (Norton, p. 321)
• Williams's commentaries on "The Yachts"
• Kenneth Fearing, "Green Light"
• poetic term: "terza rima"
• Carl Rakosi's comments his status as a communist poet
• Carl Rakosi, "Oh, Sestina" (text and recording of the poet explaining and reading the poem)
• Bob Brown, one poem from his Gems (1931)
• Aaron Kramer, "The Death of President Roosevelt" (1945)
• George Hitchcock, "War" (1952)
• Wallace Stevens, "The Man with the Blue Guitar" (1937)

  Sacco & Vanzetti