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| Alice Corbin Henderson |
In
September of 1914, shortly after the First World War began, the American
magazine Poetry announced a war
poetry contest: writers were invited to submit poems addressing the war in
Europe; the best poems would be published in the November 1914 issue, and the winning
poem would be awarded a $100 prize. In her essay “Poetry and War” that appeared
in the November war poetry issue, the magazine’s assistant editor, Alice Corbin Henderson, wrote,
“War
has actually lost its illusion and its glamour.…The American feeling about the
war is a genuine revolt against war, and we have believed that Poetry might help to serve the cause of
peace by encouraging the expression of this spirit of protest.”
Most
Americans were initially against their country’s involvement in the First World
War, and George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 was often cited as support
for American neutrality: “Why quit our
own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of
any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice? It is our true policy to steer
clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
However,
by the time the United States entered the war in April of 1917, the mood of the
country had shifted. Like many other
American writers, Alice Corbin Henderson* had joined the Vigilantes, a writers’
syndicate dedicated to composing and publishing patriotic editorials and poetry
for “the current crisis.” With over 300 members pledged to the organization,
the Vigilantes included such well-known authors as Edgar Lee Masters, Amy
Lowell, and Vachel Lindsay.
Corbin’s
poem “A Litany in the Desert” is a litany for war. With the rhythms of a prayer, its
chanted repetitions build lengthy lists that reveal the conflicted, complex feelings
many Americans held about the bloodshed that was “to make the world safe for
democracy.”
A Litany in the Desert
I
On the other side of the Sangre de Cristo
mountains
there
is a great welter of steel and flame. I have read
that
it is so. I know nothing of it here.
On
the other side of the water there is terrible carnage.
I
have read that it is so. I know nothing of it here.
I
do not know why men fight and die. I do not know
why
men sweat and slave. I know nothing of it here.
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| Sangre de Cristos, photo by Dave Hensley |
II
Out
of the peace of your great valleys, America, out of
the
depth and silence of your deep canyons,
Out
of the wide stretch of yellow cornfields, out of the
stealthy
sweep of your rich prairies,
Out
of the high mountain peaks, out of the intense
purity
of your snows,
Invigorate
us, O America.
Out
of the deep peace of your breast, out of the sure
strength
of your loins,
Recreate
us, O America.
Not
from the smoke and the fever and fret, not from
the
welter of furnaces, from the fierce melting-pot of
cities;
But
from the quiet fields, from the little places, from
the
dark lamp-lit nights – from the plains, from the
cabins,
from the little house in the mountains,
Breathe
strength upon us:
And
give us the young men who will make us great.
The
poem begins with a litany of incomprehension: its first short stanza repeats “I
know nothing” and “I do not know” five times.
One can read of the war, its steel and flame, its artillery and bombs,
and still “know nothing.” The tragedies of the war are so vast as to seem
almost unreal. Although this war of “terrible carnage” appears impossibly
distant from the mountains of New Mexico, the very name of the mountains – the
Sangre de Cristo (Spanish for blood of
Christ) -- carries the echo of another brutal sacrifice of innocence.
The
second part of the poem looks not to the war, but turns its gaze to the
American landscape.
In
“The Soldier,” Rupert Brooke contrasts death in war with the life-giving beauties
of the English countryside, its flowers, suns, rivers, and rich earth. In “Litany
of the Desert,” Alice Corbin measures war against the sweep of America’s
prairies, the depth and silence of its canyons, the purity of its snow-covered
mountain peaks, and the peace of its great valleys. The immensity and spirit of
America are greater than the scope and horrors of the Great War itself.
What
will bring about the end to this modern industrial war? Not the labors of cities,
not the furnaces and smoky factories. The
poem asserts that the war will be vanquished by the spirit of the American land
that has been born and bred into the young men who come from quiet fields, mountain cabins, and
little places. Invigorated and recreated, taking courage and sure strength from
roots sunk deep into the landscape, American soldiers will “make us great” as
they set off for war fortified by the freedom inherent in the very bedrock of
their country.
Few
people remember Alice Corbin Henderson as a poet, writer, or editor: she is,
however, known for her advocacy of Native American rights and her support of
Native American arts. She and her husband helped to establish the Wheelwright
Museum of the American Indian. In an
essay on the literature of New Mexico written during the Second World War, Corbin
Henderson again shared her sacred reverence for the land, asserting, “the soil
itself has the power of re-creating the imaginative vision.”**
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*The
author used her maiden name (Alice Corbin) when writing poetry and her married
name (Alice Henderson) when writing prose. She is credited with discovering and promoting the work of poets Carl Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters; Ezra Pound and DH Lawrence were her friends and close colleagues. In reviewing her 1921 collection The Red Earth: Poems of New Mexico, Carl Sandburg said Corbin's poetry was "clean and aloof as the high deliberate table-lands where it was written" (Poetry, XVIII, June 1921).
**
Alice Corbin Henderson, “Literature” in New
Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State, 1940, page 135.
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