THE BALLAD OF CATFOOT GRIMES AND OTHER VERSES

by Hodding Carter ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 3, 1964

Hodding Carter has written fiction and non-fiction as well as edited and published a Southern newspaper. These have proven in print that prejudices chiefly associated with his region have never been allowed to take precedence over his belief in human values and the dignity of all men, even though he understands the sources from which they spring. Almost all these poems are devoted to the racial tensions, violence and confusion on the Southern scene. The title piece is a dramatic story of a Negro gambler's death and degradation at the hands of a lynch mob. Others deal with tenant farmers, the rape of innocence and the poverty of love. Although the publisher professes to see the scope of a Stephen Vincent Benet as well as the instant inspiration of a Vachel Lindsay in this short collection that analysis by-passed a closer relative --Robert W. Service. The heavy, drumbeat prosody, the use of cliche and the drama which becomes melodrama places these in the not quite extinct school of declamatory verses for elocution classes.

Pub Date: July 3, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION