The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought
Contents
ARTICLES
Far East/Mid East: The Last Casualty
Chief Justice Warren Burger and Freedom of Speech
The Politics of the Elderly
The Rise, Decline and Future of the Cult of Mao Tse-tung
A Second Bite of the Muskrat: Further Pursuit of Excellence in Contemporary Poetry
Dramatic Tension in Catch-22
The Ultimate Illusion
VERSE
Psalm for the Swallows
Lines from a Monument
Instructions for Climbing a Ladder
Hyde Speaks
Lying Down to Sleep, My Grandfather Hears the Voices Again
In Bed
Sylvan Lake: Dakota
The Neighbor Girl's Crush
Merrymount
Should Such
On Coliemore Road
Request for Assistance
The Dam
Abstract
in the issue. . .
IN THIS JANUARY 1974 issue, we range uneasily from the tragedy of the Mid East to the more predictable behavior of Chief Justice Warren Burger respecting the First Amendment to a quiet but hopeful examination of the political efforts of the elderly to improve their straitened lives to informed speculation on the rate of personality cults in general and the cult of Chairman Mao in particular; and we end on the literary note with a new approach to the criticism of poetry illustrated by a comparison of three poems by William Stafford, and with a lucid analysis of that classic of horror/humor, Catch-22.
THE AUTHOR of our lead article, D. E. SHEPARDSON, is by no means a newcomer to our pages. In fact he appeared as recently as our issue of last spring with a study of "American Policy in Asia: Tenacity in the Pursuit of Folly," proving, if nothing else, that Professor Shepardson is attracted to the hottest waters. This present article was accepted some months ago and had been put into printer's copy less than a week before renewed fighting broke out in the Mid East. In response to a telephone call from the author, we could only suggest that by the time his article appeared either it would rank as a melancholy prophecy fulfilled or the Great Powers, brought into their closest, most uneasy confrontation in many a year, might now enforce that compromise on their client states which the latter have not achieved in a generation of warfare. As we now write, this morning of October 23, 1973, an attempted ceasefire, broken by sporadic fighting all along the divided fronts, may be starting to prevail; but, as we observed to our author, his analysis of the situation and its background will be as true in late January, when this issue should see the light, as it is at this moment. The range and fairness of the discussion ensure that. We have only to add—to remind April readers—that Donald E. Shepardson is an assistant professor in the history department of the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, and holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois. Since his initial appearance in our QUARTERLY, he has been asked to participate in a symposium at Eastern Illinois University in April 1974, and he notes that the invitation made special mention of his QUARTERLY article, a suggestion of influence which gives us a certain satisfaction. Addendum: in a telephone conversation of October 24, Professor Shepardson expresses the strong hope that by the time his article comes out the warring parties in the Mid East will have begun to learn the art of living in peace with each other.
HAIG A. BOSMAJIAN is likewise no newcomer to our pages, although the present timely study of the Burger Court and how the First Amendment is likely to fare under its auspices is separated by seven years from the appearance of his study of Martin Luther King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," which appeared in our pages. Meanwhile Dr. Bosmajian, who is a professor in the speech department of the University of Washington, has acquired so long a list of publications and honors that we have space only to pick and choose. In addition to some seven articles in such journals as College English, Today's Speech, The Speech Teacher, and others, 4e has been editor (1970-1973) of Free Speech and a member of two different commissions or committees on Freedom of Speech, as well as the author of five books: The Principle and Practice of Freedom of Speech (Houghton Mi:Hlin, 1971), Dissent: Symbolic Behavior and Rhetorical Strategies (Allyn and Bacon, 1972), Readings in Speech (Harper & Row, 1965, 1971), The Rhetoric of Nonverbal communication (Scott, Foresman, 1971), and This Great Argument: The Rights of Women (Addison-Wesley, 1972). Our SANDRA W. CAMERON, has had a far briefer career, so brief that she can have as yet only an academic interest in "The Politics of the Elderly" (the vital interest belongs to the editor-in-chief). She is the mother of two young children, and although she does not specifically say so, we are guessing that she is one of a growing number of young women who have been encouraged to return to school and finish that degree begun in premarital days. At all events, by the time this article appears, she should be close to her goal, a bachelor's degree in sociology at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette.
OUR CONTRIBUTOR on the cult of Mao Tse-tung has had a career
considerably more remote from the academic than is usual among our authors. ROBERT WATLAND RINDEN spent twenty-six years in the U. S. Foreign Service, mainly in Asia, and he was and remains a China language officer. When he retired from the Foreign Service some years ago, it was to embark vigorously on a new career. He spent four years at Berkeley (receiving his M. A. degree in 1965 at the University of California) but completed his doctorate at the University of Colorado. Subsequently he returned to Berkeley as a Research Fellow in their center for Chinese Studies. He is now at his alma mater, William Penn College, Oskaloosa, Iowa, serving as Professor-in-Residence and an instructor in foreign relations, U. S. foreign policy and Chinese Communism, Sino-American relations, and the like, doing occasional articles for the Des Moines Register and this present article for our journal.
As POET or essayist, ALBERTA T. TURNER has been repeatedly assured of her welcome in the QUARTERLY. In this issue she is essayist and has taken three poems by her esteemed friend William Stafford (and ours too, we like to think, since he contributed so generously to our July issue of Kansas poets) and has made a careful analysis of the standards by which she arrived at her judgment of the degree to which each of these poems achieved excellence. Professor Turner teaches English at Cleveland State University, directs the C. S. U. Poetry Center, helps edit the poetry journal Field at Oberlin College—and recently sent us a remarkable picture of herself seated on a camel somewhere in the Canary Islands. We sent it back only at her insistence and with the regretful thought that we never illustrate our journal. It is a pleasure to add that poet Turner was one of the runners-up in the United States Prize competition for poetry this spring and that her book of poems will be published, along with those of the prize winner and the other runners-up, under a generous grant to the Pittsburgh University Press.
LOUIS HASLEY, since May 1973 Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Notre Dame, owes his two degrees to Notre Dame, and except for one parttime course at Indiana University at South Bend, has spent his long and honorable teaching career of forty years at his alma mater-a remarkable instance of dedication. He has, however, taken special studies in American Literature at Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin, and he is a past president of the Indiana College English Association. His academic specialty, the literature of American humor, led to his editing and writing an introduction to The Best of Bill Nye's Humor (published by the Yale University Press, 1972), and his essays on such varied humorists as Don Marquis, Benchley and E. B. White, Perelman and De Vries, Phyllis McGinley, and Nash have appeared in such journals as Prairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, Mark Twain Journal, South Atlantic Quarterly, Catholic World, and Arizona Quarterly. As to his apologetic reminiscence of the little girl's statement about the book on penguins, we are sure Professor Hasley has the sense of humor to appreciate our confidential report that the little girl may have found the recital tedious—but the penguins liked it!
BELATEDLY we received a brief article by ORVILLE D. MENARD which seemed too timely to let it escape us. We are therefore going one beyond our usual allotment of six and are giving our readers extra value for their money. We have published articles by Professor Menard on two earlier occasions, the first on the American role in the Vietnamese war, after which our participation in this "Dirty War Revisited" seemed to fade away (we can only hope that his present study of the imperial presidency will likewise be followed by desirable changes) and a more recent article on Black rights to self-determination. Since he has given us no fresh biographical data, we shall assume that he is still professor of political science in the University of Nebraska at Omaha and that he is still busily publishing books and articles on military and other affairs.
OUR POETRY SECTION OPENS with a poem by ROBERT BOWIE, who, at 35, has occupied himself variously as a draftsman, warehouse manager, junior research scientist, cashier, pharmacist's assistant, gas station attendant, grocery clerk, lab technician, and electrician's apprentice. He lives in College Park, Maryland. His first book of poems will soon be ready for a publisher. . . . JACK FLAVIN says he was a shoe salesman, a short-order cook, and a semi-professional boxing trainer before settling in at the Springfield (Mass.) Public Library. He has recently developed the Springfield Library Bulletin's Living Poets Series into a showcase for some of the best contemporary verse in English. . . . JAMES COLE's two poems in this issue are from the same collection on Irish subjects as the piece we printed last April. Mr. Cole spent six weeks last summer on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, writing a group of poems on the Outer Banks. . . . JIM HEYNEN is poet-in-residence at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. Until early last year he was poetry editor for the Northwest Review. His work has appeared widely in such magazines as Kansas Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Pebble, and Skywriting. A first collection of his poems is expected from Peaceweed Press. . . . GERALD COSTANZO edits the Three Rivers Poetry Journal at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He has published recent poems in Kayak, The Nation, and The Ohio Review, along with two collections in limited editions—South Moccasin (Peaceweed Press) and Badlands (Copper Canyon Press ) . . . . BARBARA SHIRK PARISH lives in Louisville where she is a free-lance writer of short-stories and poems. She holds a B. A. in English from Fort Hays Kansas State College and a masters in library science from the University of Missouri. . . .
New poems by GREG KUZMA have appeared in Counter/Measures, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The New Yorker. He teaches writing at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and is currently at work on the thirteenth number of Pebble. The latest volumes in his Best Cellar Press pamphlet series are by James Young, David Kherdian, and Ted Kooser. The second of his two poems in this issue is not true. . . . RON SLATE has returned to Merrymount (Quincy, Mass.) from California, having completed his masters at Stanford and produced the first issue of a new poetry quarterly, The Chowder Review. His father is a liquor distributor in Quincy, and one of his private labels is Thomas Morton (bourbon, gin, vodka, etc.), named in honor of the only truly splendid man that ever lived in Massachusetts. . . . With his M. F. A. from the University of Montana, WILLIAM VELDE is presently at the University of Iowa working on a book of poems for his Ph. D. in modem letters. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Northwest Review, and Poet and Critic. THE MIDWEST QUARTERLY will print another of his longer poems in April.
Recommended Citation
Shepardson, D. E.; Bosmajian, Haig; Cameron, Sandra W.; Rinden, Robert Watland; Turner, Alberta T.; Hasley, Louis; Menard, Orville D.; Bowie, Robert; Parish, Barbara Shirk; Flavin, Jack; Costanzo, Gerald; Heynen, Jim; Velde, William; Slate, Ron; Cole, James; Kuzma, Greg; and Midwest Quarterly Editors
(1974)
"The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 15 No. 2,"
The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 15:
Iss.
2, Article 1.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol15/iss2/1