Modernism in the Early 20th Century

American Poet Amy Lowell, wrote the poem “September, 1918” during the height of Americas involvement in the first World War. The poem is also a great representation of modernism first appearing in poetry.

            This poem starts off with beautiful imagery. She’s describing a fall afternoon. The whole first stanza is filled with words that have positive connotation.

“The trees glittered…”

“The houses ran along them laughing…”

“The sidewalks shone…”

“the colour of water falling through sunlight…”

She then leads us to a park where two little boys are playing and gathering berries to put in their box. Everything is very light and happy. Then everything shifts in the next stanza. In the first line of the second stanza she immediately mentions war.

“Someday there will be no war”

That line alone changes the mood of the poem. Instead of being bombarded with beautiful, calming imagery, the mood changes to a sad, longing, defeated mood. The stanza goes on to express the feeling of hoping for a day without war. She’s hoping for a world like the one described in the first stanza. She saves the memories she has of a world full of beauty and hangs on to them.

“To-day I can only gather it

and put it into my lunch-box,

For I have time for nothing

But the endeavor to balance myself

Upon a broken world.”

She’s holding onto these memories but she understands that she isn’t living in that world anymore. The world that she lives in is broken. She lives in a world that is engulfed in war and despair. It’s not perfect and things don’t always make sense.

            After reading this I understood how it was an example of modernism. It is full of powerful imagery and it shares the idea of the world being chaotic instead of being perfect and full of order. As I went back to read it again I started to even notice in the first stanza that it isn’t as “happy” as I originally thought. There are darker ideas intertwined with the positive diction. Even though the poem depicts a beautiful fall scene, some words that she chooses are more negative.

“Water falling…”

“tumbling of the leaves…”

“dropped maple leaves…”

These negative words about things falling gives the impression that something is going to happen. She could be hinting at war that has started. Things are starting to fall apart. The fact that she even mentions two little boys playing may represent all the families being affected by the war. Men of all ages are being sent out to war. Young men are leaving, children’s fathers are leaving, families are changing. Apart from that, the actual idea of September represents change and death. September is the end of warm weather, leaves start falling, and everything becomes bare. The harshness of winter is right around the corner. Despite the positive imagery laced in the first stanza it is actually leading to the negativity and reality in the second stanza. The world is not perfect. Although there is beauty in this world there is also despair and depression.