John Neihardt’s Epic ‘Cycle of the West’: A Video by Andrew Benson Brown The Society March 25, 2025 Classical Poets Live, Epic, Essays, Poetry 4 Comments . . . Andrew Benson Brown‘s epic-in-progress, Legends of Liberty, chronicles the major events of the American Revolution. He writes history articles for American Essence magazine and resides in Missouri. Watch his Classical Poets Live videos here. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. 4 Responses Paul A. Freeman March 25, 2025 Wow! Pretty amazing stuff. Those frontier days must have been something else. I’ve been perusing ‘The Song of Hugh Glass’ on the Gutenberg project. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53667/53667-h/53667-h.htm Thanks for bringing John G. Neihardt to the fore. Reply James Sale March 25, 2025 This is an amazing analysis – Benson Brown ought to be offered a professorship somewhere as his knowledge of poetry and poets is encyclopaedic. Sadly, of course, his views don’t fit. But, as the American poet, Christopher Morley once urged us: “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Benson Brown could never be described as ‘part of unanimity’ – thank God for that! Well done – excellent piece. Reply Margaret Coats March 25, 2025 Great choice of subject, Andrew. Neihardt may have been the longest serving state laureate of them all, having held the equivalent “State Poet of Nebraska” position for more than 50 years. You may mention that in the video, but I’ve not had 40 minutes to watch it yet. Keep up the entertaining promotion of poetry! Reply Joseph S. Salemi March 25, 2025 An extremely interesting and informative introduction to (and critical analysis of) the work of a barely remembered poet. It seems that Neihardt gave his creative energy to understanding his own locality, culture, and its history without worrying about whether an audience of anonymous poets and academics would appreciate his work. The continuing prejudice against his “Black Elk Speaks” book is due to the failure of critics to understand that Neihardt was producing a work of art, not a documentary text, and therefore could take liberties with his transcriptions of what Black Elk said. The real objection that many have had to the book is the unspoken one of “cultural appropriation,” which is always dredged up when a white man writes a boo about a non-white culture. About Neihardt’s overuse of dialect — we had an American poet, James Whitcomb Riley, who wrote almost exclusively in his Hoosier dialect of Indiana and its environs. His work was quite popular, even outside of the area where the Hoosier dialect predominated. And Joel Chandler Harris made excellent use of the very difficult black Gullah dialect when he wrote his collection of stories about Brer Rabbit. It’s true that an extended use of dialect in poetry is not favored today, because of the fact that universal education has made standard English the common speech for an educated readership. But in many European countries, local dialects have existed for centuries and have developed a large historical canon of received texts. In Italy alone there is Neapolitan, Milanese, Sardinian, Venetian, Sicilian, Calabrese, Friulian, and Romanesco (the latter is the dialect of Rome, and the world-class poetry of G.G. Belli is totally in that idiom). This video by ABB is probably going to be the go-to place for future scholarship on the poetry of John Neihardt — assuming, of course, that academics get over their dislike of formal poetry. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Paul A. Freeman March 25, 2025 Wow! Pretty amazing stuff. Those frontier days must have been something else. I’ve been perusing ‘The Song of Hugh Glass’ on the Gutenberg project. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/53667/53667-h/53667-h.htm Thanks for bringing John G. Neihardt to the fore. Reply
James Sale March 25, 2025 This is an amazing analysis – Benson Brown ought to be offered a professorship somewhere as his knowledge of poetry and poets is encyclopaedic. Sadly, of course, his views don’t fit. But, as the American poet, Christopher Morley once urged us: “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Benson Brown could never be described as ‘part of unanimity’ – thank God for that! Well done – excellent piece. Reply
Margaret Coats March 25, 2025 Great choice of subject, Andrew. Neihardt may have been the longest serving state laureate of them all, having held the equivalent “State Poet of Nebraska” position for more than 50 years. You may mention that in the video, but I’ve not had 40 minutes to watch it yet. Keep up the entertaining promotion of poetry! Reply
Joseph S. Salemi March 25, 2025 An extremely interesting and informative introduction to (and critical analysis of) the work of a barely remembered poet. It seems that Neihardt gave his creative energy to understanding his own locality, culture, and its history without worrying about whether an audience of anonymous poets and academics would appreciate his work. The continuing prejudice against his “Black Elk Speaks” book is due to the failure of critics to understand that Neihardt was producing a work of art, not a documentary text, and therefore could take liberties with his transcriptions of what Black Elk said. The real objection that many have had to the book is the unspoken one of “cultural appropriation,” which is always dredged up when a white man writes a boo about a non-white culture. About Neihardt’s overuse of dialect — we had an American poet, James Whitcomb Riley, who wrote almost exclusively in his Hoosier dialect of Indiana and its environs. His work was quite popular, even outside of the area where the Hoosier dialect predominated. And Joel Chandler Harris made excellent use of the very difficult black Gullah dialect when he wrote his collection of stories about Brer Rabbit. It’s true that an extended use of dialect in poetry is not favored today, because of the fact that universal education has made standard English the common speech for an educated readership. But in many European countries, local dialects have existed for centuries and have developed a large historical canon of received texts. In Italy alone there is Neapolitan, Milanese, Sardinian, Venetian, Sicilian, Calabrese, Friulian, and Romanesco (the latter is the dialect of Rome, and the world-class poetry of G.G. Belli is totally in that idiom). This video by ABB is probably going to be the go-to place for future scholarship on the poetry of John Neihardt — assuming, of course, that academics get over their dislike of formal poetry. Reply
