Collected poems, 1924-1974 / John Beecher

Includes index.

I. Poems, 1924-1940 : report to the stockholders -- A million days, a million dollars -- 13 hour night shift -- Big boy -- White-eye -- Brickroller -- Old man john the melter -- Run of the mine -- Good Samaritan -- The best steel in the world -- Ensley, Alabama: 1932 -- Fire by night -- Vulcan and mars over Birmingham -- Beaufort tides -- Jefferson Davis inaugural -- The spectre in plain day -- Appalachian landscape -- Vex not this ghost -- Like Judas, wasn't it? -- The odyssey of Thomas Benjamin Harrison Higgenbottom -- Altogether singing --

II. In Egypt land : a narrative poem, 1940 --

III. And I will be heard: two talks to the American people, 1940 -- And I will be heard -- Think it over, America --

IV. Poems, 1941-1944 : news item --The face you have seen -- Freedom the word -- Here I stand -- We want more say -- After eighty years -- Josiah Turnbull took no part in politics -- We are the Americans -- Their blood cries out -- White foam breaking --

V. Observe the time : an everyday tragedy in verse, 1955 --

VI. Poems, 1955-1960 : the iron maiden -- To Alexander Meiklejohn -- Screened -- Reflection of a man who once stood up for freedom -- Observations on a guided tour -- Climate of fear -- Our thoughts are free -- The search for truth -- Alter Christus -- An air that kills -- The better sort of people -- Turn of the year -- Brother innocent -- A death at sea -- The shore of peace -- Bodega head -- Dragonfly -- Fatal autumn --The honey wagon man -- Just peanuts -- Moloch -- Inquest --The polished cross -- We love our children -- Finishing school -- And ever the pyres of the dead burn thick -- Mare Nostrum -- Commercial vehicles prohibited -- Hanging gardens of Zion -- The conservative art -- Sculpture of an exhibition -- Day of strange gods --The master of Yellow Plum Mountain -- The sixth great patriarch declines -- Zion canyon: evening --

VII. Phantom city : a ghost town gallery, 1961 -- Pays to be a hunchback in Las Vegas -- The feud -- Hombre de Dios -- A tolerant woman -- Creation unlimited -- Old Mrs. Finch and the Bible salesman -- Amputee -- The end of a grave robber -- The colonel's arthritis -- Desert holy man -- Terror of the west -- A rope and trying team -- And the lord taketh away --

VIII. Poems, 1961-1974 : homage to a subversive -- wisdom of the abbot Macarius I -- Engagement at the salt fork -- The seed of fire -- Gone -- Undesirables -- Aztec figurine -- Don Gregorio from Omaha -- Bestride the narrow world -- Conformity means death -- A veteran's day of recollection -- A meditation on the flag -- Free world notes -- Yours in the bonds -- "Chainey" -- A Dixie hero -- To live and die in Dixie -- You kidding or something white folks -- On acquiring a cistercian breviary -- The Camaldolese come to big sur -- Four haiku for Peter -- Self portrait in a bad light -- Punta de los lobos marinos -- One more river to cross -- Escort for a president -- Woke up this morning with my mind set on freedom -- Somebody wins -- The convict mines -- Man of honor -- Dixie bard -- Silent in Darien -- If I forgot thee, O Birmingham! -- Kid punch -- Some old Creole customs -- Black and white together -- Georgia scene: 1964 -- De amicitia updated -- As good as gold -- Report to Herod -- Viaticum -- Pray for war -- A house divided -- Suttee -- The Chautauqua -- A literary memoir: 1939 -- Old Presbyter writ small -- A dog's life and some others -- Our lady of the snow -- In communication with the enemy -- A lucky night in 1920 -- Requiescat -- A humble petition to the president of Harvard.

The selections offered in Collected Poems, 1924-1974 comprise most of John Beecher's poetry published to date [1975], as well as many recent poems appearing for the first time. "Beecher's sense of the contemporary scene is so unique just because he understands the whole revolutionary core of the American Past." -Maxwell Geismar. As a young man, Beecher worked in an open-hearth steel mill in his native Birmingham, Alabama. It was then that he began to write poetry, spurred by a desire to expose the unhuman conditions workers suffered. In graphic scenes, John Beecher portrays the American Scene: our folk heroes and villians; blue-collar workers from mine or mill confronting industrialists; southern blacks fighting the KKK. He recalls with compassion and anger the hard life of those who worked the land in the depression years: the Okies, sharecroppers, migrant workers. "He is helping to fashion a poetic language for the common man in this era of economic imperatives." -Max Lerner. For over fifty years, Beecher has championed the ideals of the American Dream against the ills of oppression and indifference. His poetry speaks out with the wisdom and integrity of a man who is a realist and a patriot." --From the dust jacket.