Significant Events:
1930 — Joins the editorial board of Fortune magazine.“Prior to my 'Fortune' experience I should have agreed with you about the robust demoniac laughter of American Industry. But I've seen more industrialists in the last year than I hope you ever have to look at. And a sadder, stuburner, more timorous, whistle-in-the-graveyard lot never before lived on earth.”
Letter to Harriet Monroe 4 June 1931
1932 — Pulitzer prize for ConquistadorWhy didn't it [Conquistador] ring your bell? I have had plenty of cracks. Pound wrote me that it was damn bad and Tate informed the world that although I was skillful enough I was morally obsolete. And neither comment disturbed me much because I know myself that the poem isn't damn bad and I also know why Pound says (but does not think) it is. While as for Tate I simply have to confess that that I don't understand his vocabulary. He apparently means that the poem was written in past tense.
. . . the comment of the socialogues that it isn't about OUR TIME hasn't made much of a dent in my convictions because whether they know it or not it is a lot more about OUR TIME than most of the daily papers. . .
Letter to H. Phelps Putnam c. June 1932
1938 — Land of the Free. . . . . whether we thought we were free by the barbed wire
We can't say
We aren't sure
from Land of the Free
"a book of photographs illustrated by a poem"
1939-44 — Librarian of Congress
Archibald MacLeish by Nancy Crampton 1972
Where have they written our names? What have they said of us?
They call the towns for the kings that bear no scars:
They keep the names of the great for time to stare at -
The bishops rich-men generals cocks-at-arms:
Those with the glaze in their eyes and the fine bearing:
The born leaders of men: the resonant voices:
They give them the lands for their tombs: they call it America!
They call the towns for the kings that bear no scars:
They keep the names of the great for time to stare at -
The bishops rich-men generals cocks-at-arms:
Those with the glaze in their eyes and the fine bearing:
The born leaders of men: the resonant voices:
They give them the lands for their tombs: they call it America!
from Conquistador
RF Hufnagle for the Soil Conservation Service, from Land of the Free
Theodore Jung for RA, from Land of the Free
