Aiming somewhere between Michael Ondaatje's well-known, book-length poem The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
and the great modernist poems that include history—such as Williams's Patterson—poet and historian Cutler (The Massacre at Sand Creek) describes this book's 78 selections as composed of "fictional articles, dialogues, letters, and poems worked into a mosaic meant to be suggestive of the myths of the time." The three segments devoted to a colloquy, conducted by "noted medical and scientific personages Doctor Charles White, Mister Phineas Cheveux, M.A., and Mr. Orson Fowler, P.P.," present an accurate view of the lengths to which some would go to "prove" the superiority of the "white race," as the three participants debate the various merits of the new "sciences" of phrenology, ethnology and trichology, and agree upon absolutely nothing other than the white man's divine right to rule. Gradually, Cutler's perspective on his cast of characters (irascible president James K. Polk among them) and positions can be discerned: that the Mexican War marked a rise in American racism, which, coupled with newfound power, convinced Americans that if other peoples needed to be subjugated in order for "Americans" to more greatly exercise their freedom, then that was the price that must be paid. Sometimes this process goes awry, particularly with the more familiar speakers here, as when Cutler has Emerson write, "We have a singleness/ of heart that contrasts with the Latin Races. We conquer/ with our head as well as our hands. Americans/ possess an inner, vital force"—which contains some particularly un-Emersonian sentiments. But the consequences of the phenomenon Cutler documents remain today, making Cutler's book a provocative foray into the history of ideas. (June)
