Lt. Kendall Everly is Here

The Journals of Lt. Kendall Everly: a Story of the American Civil War

My second book, The Journals of Lt. Kendall Everly: a Story of the American Civil War, is ready for sale. A school teacher and a pacifist, Kendall Everly pits himself against the war, saddened by the fleeting innocence of his students and the purity he feels that innocence personifies. ultimately, Everly embraces the Union effort and enlists, a noble effort to protect the youth he knows will soon understand the terrible realities of blood and steel. Yet, the war and its horrors envelop him, transform him into a man he no longer knows or recognizes. Below, I’ve included a selection from the book.

If you enjoy history and a good story, I’m sure you’ll enjoy my book. Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War is also available for purchase.

I hope to use this blog to share my adventures (speaking events and signings) with anyone who is interested. I also hope to document the development of my third book. More to follow soon.

Now, here’s a selction from my new book.

Beast

July 17, 1861

Everly, snapped the general,
find a soldier to slap, and slap him…
then slap the boys next to him.

Confederate trash is walking close.
I can smell’em and I want every
nose sniffing with me. I want

you sniffing with me. Understand?
The regiment twisted through green hills
rising and falling like swells

on a waking sea. Soldiers stepped
two by two, muskets propped
against their shoulders, marching

as my son marches to church
and school. Mr. Everly, called one.
It’s me, Tommy VanLenten. It was indeed.

His eyes greeted mine as a boy’s
would greet his father’s. I was his teacher.
Think we’re in for a roll and a ruckus?

Little Tommy, how you struggled
with your spelling. Lieutenant, soldier,
I blasted. I am your` lieutenant. Now shut

your mouth and march.
There’s a beast about.

Related articles

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We All Need Poetry – Do We, Really?

This morning, I read an article in which poet and professor Tracy K. Smith is quoted saying that “We all need poetry — even hedge fund managers. The moments in our lives that are characterized by language that has to do with necessity or the market, or just, you know, things that take us away from the big questions that we have, those are the things that I think urge us to think about what a poem can offer. Even the students who probably won’t keep writing poetry can learn from poems. The things that a poem can teach them to see and to hear and to listen for are necessary.”

My response? Do the hedge fund managers know they need poetry?

Yes, we all need to see the doctor from time to time. Yes, we all need to take our medicine, but do we know that we need to? And if we know, do we? Honestly, I really don’t think so.

I’ve also read that “In all ages, poetry has been regarded as important, not simply for pleasure, but as something central to each individual’s existence, something of unique value, and something which makes us feel better off for having and which we are spiritually impoverished without.”

Poetry is central to my existence, but I don’t believe it is central to existence. People live and live well without poetry. Rather, in my opinion, most people run from poetry as they might run from pestilence; yet, they live well. From their point of view, they live better.

I do believe that if poetry were a bigger part of the world the world, and those in it, might fare better. Sadly, I believe poetry may die before the world does. Those people I mentioned, those runners, everyday people, intelligent people…well, they just keep running.

I need poetry and I seek it out. Do others need it? Maybe they do, but why pursue it when they, in their minds, are getting along just fine without it?

Perhaps then, I’ve just convinced myself to spread a bit of poetry. Perhaps not. I’m really not sure.

Related articles

• Does Poetry Still Matter? Yes Indeed, Says NPR NewsPoet (npr.org)

A Triumphant Yawp!!

I did it. It’s done. Save for a few minor edits and revisions, my second manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War, is done and should be on book shelves later this year.

It was tough nut to crack, much darker than my first book, but it’s done and I’m happy.

Here’s the book’s first poem, the first entry in Kendal Everly’s journal. Everly is a teacher and a pacifist. He writes this not long before the Civil War begins.

English: Gen. Charles Griffin (1825 – 1867) (as Captain), career officer in the United States Army and a Union general in the American Civil War. He rose to command a corps in the Army of the Potomac and fought in many of the key campaigns in the Eastern Theater. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the Place

April 1, 1861

Here, beneath these trees –
oak and ash – shadows lay
like blankets spread
for a community of picnics.
I feast on a moment’s song:

breezes, still laced
with March’s chill, weave
as ribbons about these limbs,
Giggling children dart
behind stalwart trunks

hiding from each other and me –
children teasing me, their teacher,
as I walked to school.

But this spring rumbles.
Men who drape themselves
in the dark robes of politics

brandish words as warriors
brandish swords –
and I am afraid.

Related articles

• A Civil War Apocalypse (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• A Poem from my Forthcoming Book (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Confederate Ghosts (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Everly Gets a Book Blurb

Sorry, folks. I’ve been busy. My high school students have
just finished a week of mid-term exams and I’ve been grading
them, all 125 of them. Additionally, the Spring semester has
started at Passaic County Community College. I’m a
writing professor once again.

Today, I’ve a bit of time to share a smidge of good news. My book
manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War, is now officially a fothcoming book. The contract is in my hands. Additionally, historian and author Scott Mingus has agreed to provide the book with its first back cover blurb. Scott Mingus is the author of several books concerning the American Civi War and I’m very excited to have him be a part of my second book.

Here’s a link to Mr. Mingus’s website: http://www.scottmingus.com/Books_by_Scott_Mingus.html

A Civil War Apocalypse

New Jersey poet Adele Kenny has challenged me again. Via her blog, Kenny recently tasked her readers to write an “Apocalypse” poem. You can read Kenny’s challenge here. My effort is posted below. It’s a poem from my new manuscript,
The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War. My protagonist, Lt. Kendal Everly, a school teacher, a pacifist, is about to be brutally enveloped by war. To a degree, he is about to face a personal
Apocalypse. Everly, wrapped in rage, has already stabbed his adversary, a young Confederate soldier (detailed in a earlier poem); now, Everly straddles his foe, bends over him, and wraps hisfingers around the boy’s neck.

Lost

August 4, 1861 – Entry IV

His neck was thin. My fingers
slid around it as they might caress
your neck, Elizabeth. Yet, it was slicked

with blood so it felt as if I tightened
my grip around a fish. Hunched over
like Notre Dame’s bell ringer, I pulled his head

closer to mine. He might have thought
I meant to kiss him. My heart, my mind,
both bubbled with some foul Satanic froth,

both marvelled at the deepening color
of his face, a deep purple, a fine wine.
I gulped the dying gasps of this boy

as if his death would envelop me
with the silken filaments of salvation.
My fingers tightened. His neck grew thinner,

a wet string. His mouth, like a gate, opened,
dark and wide, attempting to conjure breath.
His limbs flailed attempting to embrace the air.

His eyes, opened wide like globes.
Damn you, I screamed. DAMN YOU. And then, there was
death. He was still and I was lost. Dear God, I am lost.

Related articles

• A Poem from my Forthcoming Book
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• On my Horizon…
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• Women of the Civil War
  (cbsnews.com)

A Poem from my Forthcoming Book

I thought I’d share a poem that will be featured in my new book, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. Lost in a murderous shroud of war and hate, Everly kills an enemy, a young Confederate solider.

A dead Confederate soldier

Silken Filaments of Salvation

August 4, 1861 – Entry IV

His neck was thin. My fingers
slid around it as they might caress
your neck, Elizabeth. Yet, it was slicked
with blood so it felt as if I tightened

my grip around a fish. Hunched over
like Notre Dame’s bell ringer, I pulled
his head closer to mine. He might
have thought I meant to kiss him.

My heart, my mind, both bubbled
with some foul Satanic froth,
both marvelled at the deepening color
of his face, a deep purple, a fine wine.

I gulped the dying gasps of this boy
as if his death would envelop me
with the silken filaments of salvation.
My fingers tightened. His neck grew

thinner, a wet string. His mouth,
like a gate, opened, dark and wide,
attempting to conjure breath. His limbs
flailed attempting to embrace the air.

His eyes, opened wide like globes.
Damn you, I screamed. DAMN YOU.
And then, there was death. He was still
And I was lost. Dear God, I am lost.

Emancipation is Here: A Glorious Anniversary

“On this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signs the final Emancipation Proclamation, which ends slavery in the rebelling states. A preliminary proclamation was issued in September 1862, following the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. The act signaled an important shift in the Union’s Civil War aims, expanding the goal of the war from reunification to include the eradication of slavery” (This Day in History – History Channel).

Here’s a poem from my book Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War. In it, Private McGraw, atop a large tree, sees former slaves fight for the first time.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Shards of Night

Them Feds started pouring through
the wood like a river that run its banks.
My heart started thunking wilder than a cat’s
heart after that cat scampered up a tree
cause a dog done breathed on its tail –

and sure enough, I was up a tree.
But, hell – my jaw almost clanked
the ground when I see that flood
a might closer. I was perched on top
a whole cluster of Yankee darkies.

Shit, I says, Abe sent them damn slaves
to fight. I first guessed they’d be whooping
and shucking like a gaggle of monkeys,
but they clutched their guns like soldiers
and their faces where all chiseled from stone

solid as Zion. Our boys started popping muskets
first and a few of them niggers fell,
but the others paid no mind to that. They ran
straight at those pickets like shards of night,
screaming hell and spitting lead.

I seen one take three bullets before
he toppled. Each time blood puffed
from his belly like a red cloud at sunset.
And the one swinging the flag made certain
them stripes never scraped the ground.

I swear them darkies be men.
By God, they be men.

Related articles

• The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect – History.com This Day in History – 1/1/1863 (civilwarironclads.wordpress.com)
• On This Day In 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation Takes Effect (rememberinghistory.wordpress.com)
• The Emancipation Proclamation (neatorama.com)
• The Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for the politics of self-liberation | Priyamvada Gopal (guardian.co.uk)

I Got Some Fan Mail

I was very happy to receive this note earlier today. It’s from someone who read my book, Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War. Please allow me to share it with you here.

——————————————————————————-

Scott,

I received the book between 4:30 and 5:00 this afternoon. Once I got a few minutes to pause, I read the first 35 pages before I absolutely had to put it down.

Scott, this work is excellent! Have you ever served in combat? I have, and the sensual and emotional nuances you’ve captured here are genuine.

On the other hand, for the very reasons I’ve stated, it’s a gut-wrenching read, and that, my friend, is maybe the highest accolade I can give you.

——————————————————————————-

A nice Christmas gift.

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Sunday Poem: The American Civil War Decorates the Tree

“The most beloved symbol of the American family Christmas–the decorated Christmas tree–came into its own during the Civil War. Christmas trees had become popular in the decade before the war, and in the early 1860s, many families were beginning to decorate them. Illustrators working for the national weeklies helped popularize the practice by putting decorated table-top Christmas trees in their drawings” (http://dburgin.tripod.com/cw_xmas/cwarchristmas.html).

Here’s a poem inspired by the information presented above.

`Round that Tree

Me and a few boys got ta thinkin’ –
we need ourselves a tree all dressed up
like Christmas time. Found ourselves

a stout pine on the skirts of camp,
but spent more than a minute scratchin’
our heads what ta hang on it.

Jasper hung his hat on a limb.
Smiling, we all done the same.
Started collecting hats from this fella and that –

they all gave`em too, once they
knew what we was doin’. We all stood
`round that tree for a bit,

even when the wind strated ta bite.
All said and done, for a time
none of us thought

about the blood and chunk
we usually gotta juggle.
Damn nice tree it is.

Related articles

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Writing Challenge: Christmas and the Civil War

I posted this poem last year, but thought to post it again when I read New Jersey poet Adele Kenny’s writing challenge. Basically, Adele challenged her readers to write a Christmas/winter poem. You can view the challenge here.

I enjoyed the colloquial aspects of this poem. All spelling mistakes are made on purpose. The poem is inspired by an actual letter written by a Civil War soldier to his wife. Let me know what you think.

Merry Christmas.

Private Levi McCormick Writes His Wife: Christmas 1864

I bin down with squirts.
My backend’s raw as a sun bernt scalp
and cold air snaps at me
when I drop my trousers.

I borrow’d some clothes.
Had to wash mine, bein’ so smelly.
Ther hangin’ on a tree limb near the fire –
stil they be frozen, stiff as a ten day corpse.

Seen me plenty of them.
Anyway, send on a box. I need a scent of home.
Tell the boys mery christmas.
I’ll be lookin’ for that christ star whilse I wate.