The Mythic and Heroic: "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I’ve been reading the epic poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poems I read as a child and in junior high and high school English classes. These are poems like Evangeline, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Tales of the Wayside Inn, which includes what is still one of the best-known poems in America, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

Longfellow in 1855

The epic Longfellow poem I hadn’t read was The Song of Hiawatha. And I was drawn to it not because I hadn’t read it, but because of an insulting comment aimed in its and Longfellow’s direction. I read an interview with two poets who have both written non-fiction works about the value of poetry. One of them mentioned The Song of Hiawatha as having something that appealed to her, even though it was “to say the least, racially insensitive.”

My first reaction was a question. Why do we feel compelled to politicize everything? My second reaction was to seek out the poem and read it for myself. Having already read three of Longfellow’s epic poems, and discovering that in one of them – Evangeline – he had done something no one in America had previously done – find the heroic in Catholics – and knowing that the poet had also written poems against slavery which cost him sales of his books in the South, I wondered if the poem was as “racially insensitive” as the writer seemed to think.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Painting: Hiawatha, oil on canvas by Thomas Eakin (1874); Hirschhorn Museum.

“Little Boy Lost” by J.D. Trafford

Not many adult American read fiction these days, and that includes Christians of all varieties. The Washington Post reported on a study recently that says people who read fiction are more empathetic than those who do not. Buffer explored the same study and found nine benefits in reading fiction, of which increased empathy was only one.

Little Boy Lost by J.D. Trafford may go a step further. It’s a mystery novel, and specifically a legal mystery novel. The hero is a lawyer in St. Louis who has a struggling practice, despite his being a member of one of the city’s powerful political families. Justin Glass’s father is a congressman; his older brother is a state senator. Justin is another kind of man, however; he cares about the people of his city, and he represents all comers, including those who can’t afford to pay, which is most of his client base.

Justin lives with his daughter Sammy in a carriage house of a home owned by his grandfather. His mother lives in the house. The grandfather and the mother are white. Justin’s father is black. The reader knows going into the story that a major theme will be race, relationships with police, political power structures, and the poor who are too often caught in a system they can’t, and sometimes won’t, escape.

A little girl shows up with a jar of change and asks Justin to find her missing teenaged brother. There’s nothing new in a missing inner-city kid; it happens so much that it’s an accepted part of “the system.” But Justin decides to accept the request. He checks with his contacts at the police department. He starts reading files. And then the boy’s body is found in a county park’ along with the bodies of eight other boys, their hands in plastic hand ties behind their backs.

Suspicions center on a parole officer who happens to be a white supremacist and neo-Confederate. The news about the suspect goes public, and the city erupts in protest and violence. And if that had been the basic story, Trafford would have drawn just another race relations cartoon stereotype. But stereotypes are not where this story goes.

J.D. Trafford

Instead, we see race through Justin’s biracial eyes. There’s no question he considers himself a black man, but he doesn’t look at life, how own or that of others, in black and white or even shades of gray. Instead, he looks at life in terms of people, and he sees people who have value and people who matter, no matter their race, income and education level, or arrest record.

Trafford is the author of three legal mystery novels, No Time to Die, No Time to Run, and No Time to Hide. Graduated with honors in law, he’s been a civil and criminal prosecutor, worked at a large national law firm, and as a non-profit attorney. He’s lived in Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, and currently lives in the Midwest. He knows his St. Louis; this story is so well anchored in St. Louis streets, neighborhoods, landmarks, and people that it could almost serve as a reality tour guide.

Little Boy Lost is indeed a mystery story, but it’s far more than that. It’s a story of a city, a story about race, and a story that reaches for understanding in a way that newspaper articles and editorials never could. And it stands as a good reminder about why it’s important to read fiction.

Photograph of downtown St. Louis from the Arch by Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash. Used with permission.

How prophets are honored

After Luke 4: 16-30

On the seventh day

or the first, he didn’t rest

but stood among them

and read the scroll he was

given. He read, rolled

the words up, and sat. A silence,

a pause, the waiting, and

then the words as he speaks

and beyond speaking the words,

he scratched their hearts,

scorched their ears, seared

their souls, the fulfillment

becoming a judgment. In dress

rehearsal, they dragged him

to the cliff, but he shook them off

and walked away, unharmed.

The time was not yet.

Photograph by Ben White via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

I’ve not read a story quite like this one, or at least written and recorded quite like this one. In 1991, a newborn baby was found barely breathing in a plastic bag in a cemetery in Oslo, Norway. Through the quick actions of several people, the baby is taken to the hospital, where he survives. Twenty-five years later, a reporter investigates what happened. Through photography, video, and text, the story is told in nine chapters, unfolding almost like a novel.

Higher education in America has a lot of problems, and not only of the students-terrorizing-administrations, destruction-of-free-speech, and political-correctness-run-amok kind. Rod Dreher has two posts on grade inflation – at Harvard. Harvard!

We all complain about it – civility in political discourse has disappeared, and everything has become political. T. Adams Upchurch asks a question we should all be asking – what has Facebook done to political discourse? It’s the precursor to a more fundamental question – what have all of us done to political discourse? – but it’s time to take a hard look at the big tech giants. And Bishop Robert Barron provides a partial answer to this question of civility on social media; it’s an age-old answer that is still true.

Alicia Stewart at CNN takes a look at myths surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation. The Gentle Author goes on a dead pubs crawl in east London. Good poetry. Good photography. And four ancient prayers. 

Life and Culture

Harvard: Extra Credit for Oligarch Kids and More on Harvard Grade Inflation – Rod Dreher at American Conservative. 

Reflections of a White Supremacist – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

The Baby in the Plastic Bag – Bernt Jakob Oksnes at Dagbladet. 

What Has Facebook Done to Political Discourse? – T. Adams Upchurch at The Imaginative Conservative. 

The Coming Software Apocalypse – James Somers at The Atlantic.

A brief history of retirement – it’s a modern idea – Seattle Times.

Faith

4 Ancient Prayers from the Earliest Christians – Rick Kosloski at Aleteia

Poetry

Cellar Door – Marjorie Stelmach at Image Journal.

A Rare and Beautiful Creature: On the Life and Work of Frank Stanford – James McWilliams at The Millions.

Publishing Poetry Today: A Renewal of the Spirit in Language – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

Mirror – Richie Hofmann at How a Poem Happens by Brian Brodeur.

Fall’s Leaves (Reverse Cinquain) – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

Art and Photography

Thomas Rowlandson’s Lower Orders – Spitalfields Life.

Splendor in the Grass – Tim Good.

American Stuff

150 Years Later, Myths Persist about the Emancipation Proclamation – Alicia Stewart at CNN.

At the Center of the Storm: John Sullivan of New Hampshire – M.E. Bradford at The Imaginative Conservative.

British Stuff

The Gentle Author’s Dead Pubs Crawl – Spitalfields Life. 

Writing

Plotters and Pantsers for All Genres – Ann Kroeker.

Bishop Barron on Pride, Humility, and Social Media (Hat Tip: J of India)

Painting: Portrait of Gustave Geffroy, oil on canvas by Paul Cezanne.