SOURCE: "Vachel Lindsay, Child-Errant," in Destinations: A Canvas of American Literature Since 1900, J. H. Sears & Company, 1928, pp. 67-74.

In the following essay, Munson deems Lindsay's poetry trivial and ineffective.

Vachel Lindsay has a program for an American renaissance and he writes poetry. Since his poetry is the direct answer to his program, I shall begin with his scheme for transfiguring the United States.

The basis of his plan is localism. Our small cities and towns and agrarian communities are to be awakened and inspired to create their own arts and crafts. Democracy is to be beautiful and Beauty is to be democratic and the Church is to clasp hands with both. The neighborhood spirit serving God and Art and Democracy is the force that shall create a rebirth for which the metropolis is sterile. And the method? Lindsay is doer as well as dreamer. He has experimented as...