Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life by Susan Hertog Read Free Book Online Page B

in
Commonweal
, was domestic, not poetic, “like flower arranging or china painting.” 10 She was a Woman Poet, a “poetess,” with the cultural fatuity of the “second sex.” 11
    In January 1957, just as Anne thought the storm of criticism was over, John Ciardi launched a literary crusade. Fallen Catholic turned missionary poet, English professor turned literary critic, Ciardi was the newly appointed poetry editor of
The Saturday Review of Books
. From the moment he took that seat, he “systematically set out to uproot genteel poetry,” the kind written, he explained, by celebrities with more face than substance, and “blue-haired old ladies” whose poetry reflected little more than the polite conventions of a bygone era. For Ciardi, Anne Lindbergh, wife of Charles and female spokesperson for the middle-aged middle class, seemed to “fill the bill perfectly.” 12
    In the January 12 edition
of The Saturday Review
, Ciardi showed his contempt for Mrs. Lindbergh’s collection. It was his “duty,” he wrote, to expose her “offensively bad book—inept, jingling, slovenly, illiterate even, and puffed up with the foolish afflatus of a stereotyped high-seriousness, that species of esthetic and human failure that will acceptany shriek as a true high-C.” Her poems were mindless clichés, he wrote, with tortured rhymes and bad grammar. 13
    Unsatisfied with literary condemnation, Ciardi also attacked the “low-grade humanity” of her work, lacing his criticism with hell-fire damnation. “Mrs. Lindbergh’s poetry,” he wrote, “is certainly akin to Original Sin, and in the absence of the proper angel I must believe that it is the duty of anyone who cares for the garden to slam the gate in the face of the sinful and abusive … What will forgive Mrs. Lindbergh this sort of miserable stuff?” 14
    Ciardi’s condemnation of Anne was probably a reflection of his spiritual turmoil. After spending a childhood begging for forgiveness from a devout Catholic mother who played on his fears of divine retribution, Ciardi had turned to the study of literature and poetry. The poet, he wrote, was a divine conduit for superior culture. A paternalistic leader who “lured” his readers through sound, imagery, symbol, and rhythm, the poet directed them to a higher law.
    “Luring” intellects wasn’t his only intent. Both at the University of Michigan, where he received his master’s degree in 1939, and at Kansas City University, where he later taught, Ciardi had earned a reputation as a womanizer, intent on proving his sexual potency to female students and colleagues’ wives. Conquest and control defined his relationships with women, and female poets were special targets. 15
    But clearly Mrs. Lindbergh was more to Ciardi than a pretentious lady with a penchant for rhyme. She was the wife of Charles Lindbergh, known for his political “sins.” Ciardi had a political agenda of his own.
    In 1947, he had been a spokesperson for the Progressive Citizens of America, a political action committee comprising many artists, academics, and political radicals who became disaffected with the Democratic Party after Franklin Roosevelt’s death. At its prow was Henry Wallace, secretary of agriculture under Roosevelt and the 1948 presidential candidate for the Progressive Party. In 1940, Wallace had condemned Lindbergh as “the outstanding appeaser of the nation.” 16 And in 1948, Ciardi campaigned for him throughout the summer, six nights a week, earning a reputation as Wallace’s “right-hand, golden-tongue”pitchman. 17 But when Wallace lost the election to Harry Truman, Ciardi turned his attention to literary matters.
    His criticism of Anne’s poetry raised one of the largest outcries in the history of
The Saturday Review
. Hundreds of letters poured in, most of them in defense of Anne. 18 For Anne, the criticism was her self-damning voice reaching a deafening roar. Against all instinct and religious teaching, Anne had dared to