This long-overdue collection, which gathers together more than two
hundred poems written over a span of six decades, along with an extended
biographical analysis by Fred Whitehead, permits a comprehensive
assessment of the work of a man Thomas McGrath described as "one of the
very best of the revolutionary poets."
Don Gordon made his name in the 1930s as a passionate and outspoken
political poet, his work being published in the most prestigious
American journals. In spite of his growing literary reputation he was
called before the Un-American Activities Committee of the U.S. House or
Representatives in September, 1951. Due to his openly communist views
and his reluctance to give the committee names of fellow radical
writers, Gordon was blacklisted from employment in the film industry. He
devoted his time to writing poems, despite the difficulty of finding a
wide audience for them.
Many of Gordon's poems are suffused with themes of revolution and
political activism, but this collection showcases the breadth of the
subjects he addressed in his sixty years of writing, expressed with a
rigorous aesthetic sensibility in a style that incorporates diverse
influences, including modernism and surrealism.
"Don Gordon is great," Meridel LeSueur wrote, "because he shows the
vigorous and wondrous strength of the people." With this complete
collection of his poems, readers can at last experience the full range
of this vigorous and challenging writer.
