Nobody would be happier
To see his face upon the twenty
Than Andrew Jackson—crappier
A human being than others: plenty!

I once believed his lineage
Flowed in my veins, but if not blood
I know I own revulsion’s wage,
At least that much is understood.

That “filthy lucre” could not be
More filthy than with Jackson’s face--
Rendered less so symbolically
If Harriet Tubman’s should replace.

Except for Lincoln let us have
The lot of those white men replaced:
Sojourner Truth, who was a slave,
Or Douglass, who preached freedom’s taste.

Malcolm and Martin let us put
And John Brown also, to affirm
That liberty has taken root
Within bold hearts that do not squirm.

​Millay was said to have regretted devoting so much literary effort to doggerel in the cause of activism. Said by Edmund Wilson, I imagine—though the haze of memory prohibits citation, and I may have it wrong.

The outrage she felt over the “failure of justice” in the case against Sacco and Vanzetti is well documented, but aside from some poems, the extent of her activism is unknown to me. Regardless, I have never considered “doggerel” in the service of a just cause to be misplaced; and production of literary masterpieces may not—indeed to the artist cannot—be of equal importance to heeding the dictates of one’s conscience, even at the sacrifice of “art.”

Poetry is not exactly an art, as I have said, but a “divine inspiration” if just of a minor sort, an offshoot of prophesy as Spenser said (again, pardon the lack of citation, for the same cause). However, “inspiration” is no guarantee of “quality,” and the worst drivel may be the most inspired. To the “creator” in contrast to the “consumer” it makes little difference (here using the popular terminology as a shorthand, although I don’t particularly subscribe to either term).

In my book, Small Poems, and more recently at this blog, I have devoted myself to popular (and no doubt) ephemeral causes: the quality cannot be spoken for and I hope that less frivolous pieces (if any) survive, though with the survival of humanity called into question the point becomes moot.

Some of these pieces have been written with a degree of inspiration, and some cobbled together entirely without. It may be counterproductive to post them all, as I have done, several in a day sometimes; but I live by the compulsion. Unless the political climate in America changes, I expect to continue acting in the same way, dislike it though I may but not regretting it. Go to my Books page and you will see I have a slew of work under the belt, and, while I regret being taken away from more esoteric endeavors, the climate is not amenable to the sort of work I did, nor will be—and I lack compunction to change.

Today—though I am not entirely clear why—I opened a Twitter account (and tweeted). It seems to be the medium of the day. Not long ago it was suggested to me that one of my blog poems ought to be tweeted. I had not given or did not give the matter much thought; but on the spur of the moment today I did so, though whether I will continue is unpredictable.

Not surprisingly DavidXNovak was unavailable as a handle, so I went with the title of my epic (or epic attempt), The Resurgiad: @TheResurgiad. I am not a luddite, but wary of devoting too much time to this or becoming addicted. The title was never an especially good title even for the poem, but, unlike that of my first long poem The Requiem, it has the advantage of being unique.

When I first heard Mozart I thought, “Oh, to live in a world of pure sound!” It would be pleasant, also, to live in a world of literature (pure or impure), however these times are not conducive to that, and we do not choose our times.