Jean Millet, The Man with the Hoe Among the two of three most widely read--or at least widely distributed--American poems of the nineteenth century was Edwin Markham's populist-progressive work "The Man with the Hoe" where the common laborer is idealized: O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, How will the future reckon with this Man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?

June 26, 27, 28 - introduction to the course

• some tips for getting started
• video:
• Edwin Markham, excerpts from "Lincoln, the Man of the People"
  
• William Vaughn Moody, excerpt from "Gloucester Moors"
  
• audio: Al Filreis on Moody's poem as an example of late-century poetry "gone to seed"; especially for a poet like William Carlos Williams, the poetic language of this verse, not so much its popular/populist sentiment, fueled the strongly negative reaction among modernists
• Louis Ginsberg, "Waterfalls of Stone"
• Al Filreis briefly comments on "Waterfalls of Stone"

  ...and a hint at what's ahead

• Catherine French, "Alphabet" (1992)
• Cathleen Calbert, "Listening to My Mother in the Alzheimer's Wing" (2001)