Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931), American "folk" poet, is best known for his poems about Johnny Appleseed and for "The Congo, " which uses syncopated jazz rhythms.

Vachel Lindsay was born in Springfield, Ill. He studied at Hiram College in Ohio, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York School of Art. He lived as a modern-day troubadour, selling poems and drawings as he traveled. His Swedenborgian religious background was strengthened by his personal rediscovery of the 18th-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Many of Lindsay's poems echo the work of the English poet William Blake, in diction and theme, particularly the poems about children, poor people, and the immanence of divinity. Lindsay's literary "litany of heroes" included American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.

Lindsay's poetry exuded patriotic and democratic exuberance and optimism. He was hailed by many contemporary poets, particularly Edgar Lee Masters and Amy Lowell, and contemporary critics saw him as an exemplar of the "New Poetry."

Lindsay's first major book was General William Booth Enters into Heaven (1913). The book The Congo appeared in 1914 and The Chinese Nightingale in 1917. Lindsay's all-inclusiveness might have surprised even Emerson and Whitman—concerned as both were with writing the poem that expressed all of multitudinous America. During his brief career Lindsay managed to hymn such national heroes, real and mythological, as Abraham Lincoln, General William Booth, John L. Sullivan, Johnny Appleseed, John P. Altgeld, Theodore Roosevelt, and Pocahontas.

With lilting freshness the poem "Kalamazoo" manages to find beauty and romance in the awkward commonplaces of American life, and in its conclusion identifies a lovestruck midwestern girl with the legendary Helen of Troy: "Who burned this city of Kalamazoo—/Love-town Troy-town Kalamazoo?" Although Lindsay often resorted to flat statement in his poems about God's immanence, parts of "Johnny Appleseed" are among his best work. However, the rhythms of "General Booth" and "The Congo" (the latter is ridiculous as the serious "study" of the Negro Lindsay meant it to be) tend to become tire-some, and even the best of Lindsay's work tends toward doggerel. But his celebrations of America and its people remain unsurpassed in their genre (for example, "The Golden Whales of California, " "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, " and "The Eagle That Is Forgotten").

Lindsay's collected poems appeared in 1938 (rev. ed. 1952). His letters are also important (edited by A. J. Armstrong, 1940), and the autobiographical Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty (1914) and A Handy Guide for Beggars (1916) give further insight into the man.

Though Lindsay's work was in vogue for a while during his lifetime, he was an odd man, subject to fits of melancholy. After a prolonged period of insanity, he committed suicide in New York. His works have been largely ignored by recent critics.

Further Reading

A book devoted completely to Lindsay is Edgar Lee Masters, Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America (1935). Other discussions of Lindsay are in Mark Harris, City of Discontent (1952); Eleanor Ruggles, The West-going Heart (1959); and Hyatt H. Waggoner, American Poets: From the Puritans to the Present (1968).

Additional Sources

South, Eudora Lindsay, From the Lindsay scrapbook: Cousin Vachel, Lafayette, Ind.: J.A. Blair, 1978. □

Lindsay, [Nicholas] Vachel (1879–1931), born in Springfield, Ill., attended Hiram College (1897–1900), studied art at Chicago and New York (1900–1905), and decided, after unsuccessful attempts to find employment, to be “a tramp and a beggar.” Although he spent his winters in lecturing on art and temperance, much of the time during the following years was devoted to tramping tours of the U.S., on which he bartered verses for food and lodging. His poetic broadsides and leaflets include The Tree of Laughing Bells (1905) and Rhymes To Be Traded for Bread (1912). In 1912 he began to lecture on The Gospel of Beauty and in 1913 he published his first collection, General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems, whose title piece⧫ displays the qualities of vivid imagery, vigorous rhythm, and dramatic conception for which Lindsay is best known. The volume also contains such conventional but equally sincere poems as “The Eagle That Is Forgotten.” With the publication of The Congo and Other Poems (1914), he was widely recognized as an exponent of the “new poetry,” and came to be in great demand as a public reader of his own works. Still preaching the gospel of beauty, he tried to stimulate a popular taste for poetry through a method that he called “the higher vaudeville,” in which his recitations were marked by a dramatic use of gesture and chant, emphasizing his strong rhythms and syncopation. This second volume includes “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight,” “The Congo,” and “The Santa‐Fé Trail,” all characteristically vivid, imaginative “visions,” in which the poet embodies his romantic faith in nature and a life close to the soil, and his fervent patriotism and love for democracy. The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems (1917) marked the peak of his artistic achievement, its title poem⧫ and “The Ghost of the Buffaloes” having a subtle beauty of melody and image that he never surpassed, although “In Praise of Johnny Appleseed,” commemorating the deeds of his favorite pioneer hero, is one of his most significant pieces. Losing the faculty of self‐criticism, he became more prolific but quickly declined in power, and his later poetry is of comparatively little value. Among his later collections are The Daniel Jazz (1920), The Golden Whales of California (1920), Collected Poems (1923, revised 1925), The Candle in the Cabin (1926), and Johnny Appleseed (1928). His prose works include Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty (1914); A Handy Guide for Beggars (1916); The Golden Book of Springfield (1920), a mystic Utopia based on his gospel of beauty; and The Litany of Washington Street (1929), a book of political essays. His biography (1935) was written by his friend Edgar Lee Masters, and Mark Harris's City of Discontent (1952) is an interpretation of his life and his region.

Vachel Lindsay (Nicholas Vachel Lindsay) , 1879–1931, American poet, b. Springfield, Ill., studied at Hiram College, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York School of Art. Lindsay made tours selling his poems and drawings, living as a modern-day troubadour. He was particularly effective when reading his own poems. His poetry at its best is virile and strong. It has a fine spoken music, often enhanced by jazz rhythms. Volumes of his poetry include General William Booth Enters into Heaven (1913), The Congo (1914), The Chinese Nightingale (1917), and Collected Poems (1938). Lindsay was plagued by poverty and illness in his later years, and the quality of his poetry declined.

Bibliography: See his autobiographical Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty (1914) and A Handy Guide for Beggars (1916); his letters (ed. by A. J. Armstrong, 1940); biographies by E. L. Masters (1935, repr. 1969) and M. Harris (1975); studies by J. T. Flanagan, comp. (1970) and A. Massa (1970).