Is 5

In Short

This 1926 poetry collection stages a relentless rebellion against the dull, automated conformity of modern American life. Divided into five distinct movements, it ranges from the grit of gritty Parisian cafes and New York dive bars to high-voltage satires of patriotic posturing, war mongering, and empty consumerism. Threaded through this noise is a delicate, passionate defense of love, spring, and artistic creation. It endures because it captures the chaotic rhythm of the twentieth century while insisting that living fully remains an act of fierce, unyielding joy.

The Story

The book opens in the thick of the urban demimonde, populating its early pages with working girls, burlesque halls, neon advertisements, and rain-slicked city streets. Here, the voice belongs to the observant wanderer taking in the chatter of brothels, the clinking glasses of McSorley’s saloon, and the flash of brand-name slogans advertising collars, chewing gum, and razors. This initial landscape treats the modern city as a place of raw, unpolished humanity, where lower-class dialects and colloquial slang crash against high-art references to Cézanne and El Greco.

From the pavement, the collection turns its sights toward the public stage, launching a scid-sharp attack on institutional authority, wartime rhetoric, and polite society. The speaker skewers the mechanical bluster of politicians, pompous academics, and overly polite citizens who cheer for war without understanding its slaughter. Moving through trench memories and European cities marked by conflict, the narrative exposes the stark contrast between official patriotic lies and the actual, shattered bodies of young soldiers shipped home in pine boxes.

As the noise of public madness subsides, the setting shifts outward toward European landscapes—the cathedrals of Paris, the hillsides of Portugal, and quiet Mediterranean waters. Here, the tone slows and deepens into an intimate, sensory exploration of travel and observation. The speaker watches street performers, balloon vendors, and prostitutes with a quiet, reverent curiosity, finding in these fleeting daily moments a dignity that grand political doctrines completely lack.

Finally, the collection settles into a prolonged, radiant meditation on love, mortality, and the passage of time. Moving from autumn chill into winter dark, the poems trace the quiet, shared universe of two lovers in a room. The narrative reaches its resolution not by offering a neat philosophical answer to death or decay, but by choosing immediate experience—kissing, laughing, and welcoming the fragile return of spring—over any rigid ideology or fear.

How It Unfolds

A night in the city grid The reader enters a world of burlesque halls, cheap lodging houses, neon signs, and smoke-filled saloons where working women and street hustlers share their cynical wisdom. Slang, broken dialects, and commercial advertising slogans collide to build a portrait of modern urban life.

The public spectacle mocked The speaker turns on the establishment, delivering blistering parodies of patriotic speeches, military recruiters, and unthinking, flag-waving citizens. Pompous politicians and mindless conformity are ripped apart in favor of honest human vulnerability.

Voices from the front The narrative descends into the brutal realities of wartime, contrasting romanticized ideas of glory with the loss of young lives, gassed trenches, and shattered families. The tone becomes sharp, grieving, and uncompromising in its anger against warmongers.

Exile and foreign sunlight The setting moves across Europe, wandering through Parisian streets, foggy riverbanks, and sunny Portuguese hillsides. Observations of street acrobats, quiet cathedrals, and night-time strollers create a space of quiet contemplation away from American commercialism.

The sanctuary of two The focus narrows to an intimate bedroom where lovers face the inevitability of autumn, winter, and physical decay. The collection closes on a note of gentle triumph, choosing love, fragile spring, and sensory delight over mortality and rigid logic.

The People

The Speaker A fiercely independent maker who views the world with ironic humor and deep sensitivity. He despises pretension, official politics, and corporate routine, preferring the company of street performers, working girls, and lovers. He changes from a cynical observer of city chaos into a devoted guardian of fragile, beautiful moments.

Uncle Sol A born failure whose agricultural ventures continuously collapse—from vegetables to chickens to skunks—before he ultimately drowns himself in a water tank. His life represents the absurdity of conventional ideas of success, rewarded in death by an over-the-top, theatrical funeral.

The Patriotic Orator A mindless, booming voice of authority who spews canned phrases about liberty and sacrifice while remaining entirely detached from the real horrors of war. He stands for the hollow rhetoric of the state that sends young men to die without a second thought.

The Beloved An elusive, fragile presence whose smile, body, and laughter anchor the speaker against the dark. She represents pure vitality, spring, and uncalculated love, transforming the speaker's world into a place where death and time lose their terror.

In Its Own Voice

"If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little--somebody who is obsessed by Making."

The author lays out his artistic belief in the foreword, arguing that true creation is a dynamic, living obsession rather than a static product.

"i was sitting in mcsorley’s. outside it was New York and beautifully snowing. Inside snug and evil."

The speaker captures the warm, chaotic atmosphere of a famous Manhattan saloon while winter settles outside the window.

"each dream nascitur,is not made. . . .) why then to Hell with that :the other; this, since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid."

A central declaration of the book's philosophy, urging the reader to embrace immediate, living beauty rather than mechanical calculation.

What It's Really About

The collection wages a battle between mechanical routine and spontaneous living. It argues that modern society—with its obsession with efficiency, advertising, money, and war—sterilizes the human spirit and turns individuals into unthinking dolls. Against this soul-crushing conformity, the book places the absolute value of individual perception, poetic creation, and romantic love. It asks whether one can remain genuinely alive in a world governed by corporate slogans and institutional violence, concluding that the only meaningful resistance is to feel deeply, love without reserve, and embrace the fragile, temporary beauty of the present moment.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate bold stylistic experimentation, sharp satire, and passionate love poetry will find a rich, rewarding experience here. Reading this work feels like stepping into a high-energy jazz performance where conventional grammar and punctuation are dismantled to create new, startling rhythms. The text moves fluidly between laugh-out-loud humor, bitter political critique, and breathless lyricism.

The book presents distinct challenges that require patience. Its visual layout uses unusual spacing, merged words, and erratic line breaks that force the reader to slow down and read with both eye and ear. It also captures the unvarnished street speech, period slang, and harsh social attitudes of the 1920s, which can feel jarring to modern ears. Yet beneath these surface complexities lies an extraordinarily accessible heart. What stays with you is its infectious enthusiasm for living—its insistence that love, art, and a single blooming spring day are worth more than all the efficiency and wealth the world has to offer.