Books: Shout

EVERY SOUL Is A CIRCUS—Vachel Lind-say—Macmillan ($2.75). “Now in the fiftieth year of my age comes my revolt. I come roaring forth with a book which is the opposite of little Rollo and little Lucy.” Perhaps Poet Lindsay never said quite the same thing before, but the blatant tone of voice is unmistakably his. He is a hell-raiser whose hair is never brushed; like his latest book, he is “aggressive, however sinful and full of pride.” Two good poems appear—one an old-style Lindsay chantey, “The Virginians Are Coming Again,” and “Twenty Years Ago,” a rambling epistle to some anonymous and scornfully rejected patron. As usual, Poet Lindsay wanU these poems to be chanted, hopes that none of them will be set to music. In his recent sojourn in Spokane Poet Lindsay evolved what he calls Poem Games, in which children dance and act out poems simultaneously chanted by a reciter. “I recommend it,” says Poet Lindsay, “to parents tired of psycho-analysis.” Poet Nicholas Vachel Lindsay is now a shout (he has whispered lovely lyrics in his time). Sometimes he is inspiring, sometimes startlingly forceful, and some-times just a big noise. Born 50 years ago in Springfield, III, he still lives there. His middle name rhymes with Rachel. Besides his verse, he has written The Art of the Moving Picture, The Golden Book of Springfield, Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty, Going to the Sun (description of a Rocky Mountain tramp with Stephen Graham).