America: A History in Verse, Vol 3: 1962-1970

America: A History in Verse #3

by Ed Sanders

"Edward Sanders is America's bard, the cheerful, chanting poet who sings our collective life and times, our "Seething Nation! Vast and Flowing! Day & Night & Dawn!" His present project is a free-verse chronicle of the American Century, from the explosion of the Maine in Havana Harbor down to the present day. Two previous volumes, documenting the period 1900-1961, appeared in 2000. Now Sanders gives us a third, an account of 1962-1970, "the time of a randy young president with a bad back," of "a strange man named Johnson," then of "an even stranger man named Nixon."" "It was the time of Vietnam, freedom march, space shots, and evil - "the only word for some of it." But it was also the time of the poet's radical youth, and oh what bliss to be young, alive, and high in those excruciatingly interesting times, those days "when we searched for meaning / in the sawdust floors of rebel cafes / or the stardust soars of psychedelic haze / or mind-stretching hours in front of 4- and 8-track tape recorders / getting our brains onto friendly oxide / while we outlined our livers / like a Dan Flavin sculpture"!" What a whirling hurry of years it was, what a flash of time. And what a necessary, 21st-century Whitman Sanders is, channeling Clio for our great nation, where so many "work without halt / shoulder without shudder / to bring the Feather of Justice to every bell tower, biome & blade of grass." Long may he sing us the 1960s, and long may his America dwell in peace, freedom, and equality "out on its spiraling arm / in the Milky Way."

Paperback

First published May 28, 2002

About the author

Ed Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.

Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting against nuclear proliferation in 1961.

In 1962, he founded the avant-garde journal, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore (147 Avenue A in what was then the Lower East Side), which became a gathering place for bohemians and radicals.

Sanders graduated from New York University in 1964, with a degree in Classics. In 1965, he founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984.

In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He obtained access to the Manson Family by posing as a "Satanic guru-maniac and dope-trapped psychopath."

As of 2006, Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York where he publishes the Woodstock Journal with his wife of over 36 years, the writer and painter Miriam R. Sanders. He also invents musical instruments including the Talking Tie, the microtonal Microlyre and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Reviews

[Raymond Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of facts and inside information. Loving the format so far. More later. 07012022

[Kelly Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first three volumes of America: a History in Verse over the last couple of weeks. Great stuff. It reminds me of sections in John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy, in a good way. Also Howard Zinn's People History of the United States. It reads really fast, Sanders piles up the historical facts, synthesizing large swaths of history in a concise and elegant manner. The overall narrative never became bogged down by its own weight. His use of epithets to help the reader remember themes and characters was masterful; I'm not sure I have seen it done as well outside of Homer. At times, especially in the third volume I think he gives too much credence to left-wing conspiracy theories about the oligarchy (although I tend to lean toward believing them myself). An incredible achievement overall. I highly recommend the poem.