Poem of the Day: ‘Dumb-Bells’
Ransom was one of the major figures in what was called the New Criticism and a widely recognized poet who helped shape the next generation of poets in formalism and wry precision of language.
John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974) was an example of a kind of American — particularly Southern — poetic sense and learnedness that nearly captured literary America from the 1930s to the 1950s. These were the poets and critics trained in Greek and Latin, educated at such schools as Vanderbilt, and sent out to conquer America’s colleges. Ransom was one of the major figures in what was called the New Criticism and a widely recognized poet whose post at Kenyon College, and editorship of the Kenyon Review, helped shape the next generation of poets in formalism and wry precision of language. In “Dumb-Bells,” he swipes at the emerging fad for exercising, the services of successful people trying “try to make themselves like God.” In stanzas of three tetrameter couplets each, he mocks physical fitness as a religious cult.
Dumb-Bells
by John Crowe Ransom
Dumb-bells left, dumb-bells right,
Swing them hard, grip them tight!
Thirty fat men of the town
Must sweat their filthy paunches down.
Dripping sweat and pumping blood
They try to make themselves like God.
One and two, three and four,
Cleave the air and smite the floor!
Five and six, seven and eight,
Legs apart, shoulders straight!
Thirty fat men grunt and puff,
Thirty bellies plead, Enough!
Dumb-bells up, dumb-bells down,
Dumb-bells front, dumb-bells ground!
Thirty’s God has just the girth
To pull the levers of the earth,
They made him sinewy and lean
And washed him glittering white and clean.
Dumb-bells in, dumb-bells out,
Count by fours and face about!
Put by dumb-bells for to-day,
Wash the stinking sweat away
And go out clean. But come again;
Worship’s every night at ten.
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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.
