Worldwide School

The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems

1917

Vachel Lindsay's third book of verse, published in 1917 and dedicated to Sara Teasdale. The title poem, a laundryman's opium reverie that won the Levinson Prize, opens a collection that runs through war poems addressed to Jane Addams and Kerensky, portraits of Mae Marsh and Edwin Booth, prairie pieces, and the three-part Booker Washington Trilogy. Lindsay's essay on the poem games explains how he meant the verse to be chanted aloud.