General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems

by Vachel Lindsay

General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems is a collection of poems written by American poet Vachel Lindsay. The book was first published in 1913 and includes 36 poems, including the titular ""General William Booth Enters Into Heaven."" The poem tells the story of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, as he enters heaven and is greeted by an angelic choir. The collection also includes poems on a variety of other topics, including social justice, nature, and love. Lindsay's poetry is known for its musicality and use of spoken word techniques, such as repetition and onomatopoeia. Overall, General William Booth Enters Into Heaven and Other Poems is a powerful and thought-provoking collection of poetry that explores themes of faith, humanity, and the human condition.1917. Collection of verse from the American poet born to a family of evangelical Disciples of Christ, who transferred his crusading spirit to converting Americans to a love of poetry. His poetry explored American subjects and heroes, with patriotism and a mystic faith in the earth and nature. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Hardcover

Published July 25, 2007

About the author

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet responsible for pioneering modern singing poetry. His most famous work is "The Congo" which clearly exhibits his focus on sound in his poetry, using onomotopeia to imitate the pounding drums and chants of Congo's indigenous people.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lindsay has a religious moralistic view of do-gooders and the downtrodden. His verse relies on rhythmic chanting more than ideas or images.

[John Yelverton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely beautiful poem about a man being raised from the dead, and made whole and being given his eternal reward but Christ his King and Savior.

[George Donigian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The intensity of Vachel Lindsay dances through these poems and invites readers to hear the cry of justice and the need for change and to take a stand to end oppression.

[Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a few years Vachel (VAY-chel) Lindsay (1879-1931) was the most popular poet in America; today, he is largely forgotten. Part of this is simply the vagiaries of time and taste; another part is his most famous poem, "The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race)" which is, I gather, rather problematic. But the biggest part of Lindsay's disappearance from culture is his delivery. Lindsay was not merely a poet but a performer, who declaimed his poems like chants and songs, in an eccentric but dramatic manner,like this - though a mere audio recording cannot convey what was, apparently, also a very visual performance.

I saw a couple of Lindsay's collections - now, of course, in the public domain - for free on the Kindle store, and grabbed them. (I'm reading the other now.) His poems are, depending on one's taste and mood, either dramatic and musical, or mere sing-song-y versification. A few of them stand out in my mind, but I'd rather talk about a few general impressions the poems made on me.

This is real prairie Americana; you can hear the buzzsaw accent in the words. And I could tell, even if I hadn't known going in, that these were intended to be read out loud.

Lindsay wears his heart on his sleeve; he is an earnest Protestant, who has great respect for General Booth and his Salvation Army. It becomes clear that he was both a Temperance warrior and a Socialist - a combination not actually all that uncommon in those days before Corporate America managed to utterly soil the word "socialism" by association with Leninist-Stalinist communism.

He is sentimental at times, but not a sugary-sweet Victorian-style sentimentalism; more of a nostalgia, similar to that of Ray Bradbury, and he has a fine sense of where to stop and take on the bitterness of a true nostalgia.

More when I finish the other volume.