America: A History in Verse: 1962-1970

by Ed Sanders

Book Overview

"Seething Nation Vast & Flowing Day & Night & Dawn " Poet Edward Sanders tells the story of America in incandescent verse.

Bold, sweeping, investigative, rhapsodic, hilarious, heart-rendering, thought-provoking, Edward Sanders' three-volume, America: A History in Verse uniquely and brilliantly tells "the story of America...a million stranded fabric / woven by billions of hands & minds." It is by turns angry,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1574231898
• ISBN13: 9781574231892
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press
• Length: 387 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

The Return of The Poet-Historian (from Ahadada books)

Ed Sanders steps into the sandals of Hesiod and Homer, and the brogans of Blake and Whitman--(especially Whitman as in the patriotic, free-verse, Currier & Ives-like retellings in "Song of Myself")--and takes up the long-neglected business of Poet-Historian in his epic recounting of the history of the United States. This poem is a wild tumble through eight years, told from the point of view of a man who had a front row seat to it all as a young poet/revolutionary. Sanders captures the excitement of the time with re-workings of found texts--or as Buckminster Fuller called it, aerated prose--lists, speculations, snippets of Olson and Duncan (who are also cited as sources for bardic news), photographs, and drawings. Through it all range heroes like John and Robert Kennedy and the heavies and Great Soft Heads like LBJ and Tricky Dick. At the same time Sanders carefully maps out the well-springs of the terrible trickle of blood that became a gush and then a flood in Viet Nam. We read about the Bay of Pigs and underground comix, the Beatles and the Fugs. It's all there, folks,--all the "minute particulars"--just as Wordsworth caught the French Revolution in the Prelude, or Blake touched the pulse of America's beginnings with his electric lines, so Ed Sanders snags the great Leviathan of Time with a hook in its mouth, and sits atop it reciting the news of our American moment as we stumble forward into the deepening malaise of the 21st century. Get it, read it. This is must-know stuff--and though much of it is gloom-inspiring, Sanders' vision is a hopeful one, and the presentation of the material--the off-hand intelligence displayed--is a vaccination against despair.

MY DECADE TIS A THEE....SWEET LAND OF HIPPIES, YIPPIES, RIOTS, PEACE, WAR, ASSASINATIONS AND REVOLU

.......not to mention a great soundtrack........Sanders cuts a slice of American Pie straight out of the decade that still haunts the politics of today.........the boomers who would care about such a book will love it.....boomers who might try to read it and wonder why....were never there.......others with enough historical and/or hysterical background might love it too.......I loved it........his poetic delivery is a perfect fit...those that may criticize his view of history....well, just don't get it......this book and Sanders' similar 1968 should be required reading for the generations that are trying to figure out our mess today........thank you Mr. Sanders for your fine efforts....its appreciated......and thanks for further broadening my horizons in literature and poetry by being such a great name dropper in your American Tales