Kalliope means "beautiful voice" from Greek καλλος (kallos) "beauty" and οψ (ops) "voice". In Greek mythology she was a goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, one of the nine Muses.
Join us every Tuesday at the Daily Kos community political poetry club.
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments. Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional.
The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
It is my fervent hope that the lines of people waiting to vote today are long, and full of all the people who feel personally insulted by Donald Trump’s hate-filled campaign speeches.
I’m sure many voters think poetry is irrelevant to politics, but poets are citizens too, and some of them have been very active in social and political movements. Vachel Lindsay is such a poet.
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Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket
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by Vachel Lindsay
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I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
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Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,
Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.
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Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages with transfigured faces.
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Perhaps the most famous American citizen-poet was Walt Whitman.
From his great interconnected poem-cycle Leaves of Grass:
This is the city, and I am one of the citizens;
Whatever interests the rest interests me—politics, wars, markets, newspapers, schools,
Benevolent societies, improvements, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate, and personal estate.
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Election Day, November, 1884
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by Walt Whitman
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If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones—nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes—nor Mississippi’s stream:
—This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name—the still small voice vibrating—America’s choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen—the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous’d—sea-board and inland—Texas to Maine—the Prairie States—Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West—the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling—(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome’s wars of old, or modern Napoleon’s:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
—Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart pants, life glows:
Far too many Americans live in an America that is not truly theirs — because they are people of color, or were born in some other country, or they are seen in some way by their fellow citizens as ‘different.’ Langston Hughes cries out as one of the disenfranchised in this poem.
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Let America Be America Again
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by Langston Hughes
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Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
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(America never was America to me.)
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Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
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(It never was America to me.)
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O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
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(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
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Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
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I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
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I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
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I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
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Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
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The free?
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Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
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O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
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Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
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O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
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Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
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Many Americans know at least the final words of the poem engraved within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor, a symbol which has beckoned to generations of people who hunger for freedom and a better life. But how many remember the name of the poet, Emma Lazarus?
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The New Colossus
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by Emma Lazarus
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Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
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Although there are many other examples, I chose this poem which spoofs campaign promises for the last spot, to end on a lighter note.
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Exquisite Candidate
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by Denise Duhamel
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I can promise you this: food in the White House
will change! No more granola, only fried eggs
flipped the way we like them. And ham ham ham!
Americans need ham! Nothing airy like debate for me!
Pigs will become the new symbol of glee,
displacing smiley faces and “Have A Nice Day.”
Car bumpers are my billboards, billboards my movie screens.
Nothing I can say can be used against me.
My life flashes in front of my face daily.
Here’s a snapshot of me as a baby. Then
marrying. My kids drink all their milk which helps the dairy industry.
A vote for me is not only a pat on the back for America!
A vote for me, my fellow Americans, is a vote for everyone like me!
If I were the type who made promises
I’d probably begin by saying: America,
relax! Buy big cars and tease your hair
as high as the Empire State Building.
Inch by inch, we’re buying the world’s sorrow.
Yeah, the world’s sorrow, that’s it!
The other side will have a lot to say about pork
but don’t believe it! Their graphs are sloppy coloring books.
We’re just fine—look at the way
everyone wants to speak English and live here!
Whatever you think of borders,
I am the only candidate to canoe over Niagara Falls
and live to photograph the Canadian side.
I’m the only Julliard graduate—
I will exhale beauty all across this great land
of pork rinds and gas stations and scientists working for cures,
of satellite dishes over Sparky’s Bar & Grill, the ease
of breakfast in the mornings, quiet peace of sleep at night.
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A huge thank you and endless blessings to the many Kossacks who have worked so hard for progressive and liberal candidates, and for worthy ballot measures — may the fruit of your labor be Triumph, sweet and abundant, across the land.
POEMS & POETS
“Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket” from Collected Poems by Vachel Lindsay, Kessinger Publishing (2005) –www.poetryfoundation.org/...
Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) criss-crossed America, reading poetry and giving lectures – as a young man, often reduced to begging for food, but after his poems began to be published, he became a well-known and successful orator. After witnessing a race riot where several black people were killed, he lectures on the contributions to America of different ethnic groups, and encouraging peaceful coexistence.
“Election Day, November, 1884” from Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems, Penguin Classics (1986) –www.whitmanarchive.org
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was apprenticed in the printer’s trade at age 12, where he read voraciously, and worked as a printer, a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, and a journalist-editor, publishing The Brooklyn Freeman, an anti-slavery newspaper. His ground-breaking Leaves of Grass went through a series of re-edited editions as he continued to define his style
Langston Hughes (1902-1967) American poet, playwright, novelist, columnist and social activist. His signature poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, was first published in The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, in 1921. Hughes was a major figure in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance.
“The New Colossus” from Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings, Broadview Press (2002) –www.poetryfoundation.org/...
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) has been hailed as the greatest American Jewish author of the 19th century, a celebrated poet, author and humanitarian activist, speaking out against anti-semitism and a pioneering advocate for a Jewish homeland.
Denise Duhamel (1961 – ) is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Blowout (2013), The Star-Spangled Banner (1999), Girl Soldier (1996) and Smile! (1993). Duhamel teaches creative writing at Florida International University
Visuals
California polling place sign
Sailing ship in unsettled weather
Photo of Langston Hughes
Immigrants, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 2, 1887
