Week in Review (1927)

Dawn Potter

BOSTON, MASS., April 9—

Bartolomeo Vanzetti explains to the judge,

“I would not wish

to a dog or to a snake,

to the most low and misfortunate

creature of the earth—

I would not wish to any of them

what I have had to suffer

for things that I am not guilty of.

But my conviction is

that I have suffered

for things that I am guilty of.”

NEW YORK CITY, April 10—

Premiering tonight at Carnegie Hall,

George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique

features full orchestra and the sounds

of elevated trains, aeroplanes, and canneries.

Thus far the audience is highly displeased.

SCOTTDALE, PENNA., April 11—

The funeral of Mrs. Barbara Kulbacki, age 42, of Everson

will be held at St. Joseph’s Church

at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.

Now, on this rainy evening,

as new grass flourishes among the chinks and crevices of the street

and the Syrian girls clatter pot lids in their next-door kitchen,

her five children still huddle in the cold bedroom above the store.

Eventually someone will remember to feed them.

SHANGHAI, CHINA, April 12—

Well before dawn streaks the eastern sky,

Chiang Kai-shek frowns.

He rubs the top of his head with both hands.

And now he shrugs and tells Du Yuesheng

to go ahead and let his Green Gang

start slaughtering all the Communists

they can find.

[from Chestnut Ridge, a verse-history-in-progress of southwestern Pennsylvania (and, in this case, the world beyond the mountains)]