Thomas McGrath (1916-1990) wrote his epic long poem Letter to an Imaginary Friend between 1957 and 1985. Simply put, it is brilliant. It has no match in American literature except for maybe Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, although it is much lesser known than Leaves. McGrath is from North Dakota, and the poem is somewhat autobiographical. It is often political, and serves mostly as social and cultural criticism, but much of it is set on the prairies and plains of North Dakota. I include the untitled passage below as a related follow up to last week’s Buffalo Dusk by Carl Sandburg (I apologize if the formatting appears goofy, but I’m trying to match his original form):
The tracks of a million buffalo are lost in the night of a past
Lit only by the flare of a covered wagon
a harp of flesh
Is silenced
the book of feathers and moonlight is closed
forever
On exhausted roads spun out of the acetylene lamps of the dead
Overlands
the transcontinental locomotive is anchored in concrete
Next to the war memorial
under the emblems of progress
A vision of April light is darkened by absent eagles . . .
