“Confederate Generals Are Common on College Campuses,” Poem, Roger Camp.

Confederate Generals Are Common on College Campuses

There is nothing about his face

to halt you, even the nose running rust has retreated.

The sign says: Congressman, Commissioner, Commander.

Confederate generals are common on college campuses.

It must be his hand, extended, which draws them in.

Twice I have watched students scale the granite pedestal to remove

a coke bottle from his open palm. An act of restoration for the soldier

nicknamed the marble man by a fellow cadet at West Point,

his stature on horseback resembling a statue.

The same man whose aggression led thousands

to die senselessly at Cemetery Ridge, whose tactical skills

prolonged slavery four more years,

and whose soul cracked opened his heart

like a flower to the sun to the attentions of a battalion

of pretty young women.

Corresponding with one after her wedding night

did you go well off like a torpedo cracker?

His once grey army aged coppery green,

his bronze generals stacked like cordwood

faces unceremoniously ditched in the dirt

like the boys at Shiloh in the sprawling cemeteries

their battlefield commands spawned.

Roger Camp. I began writing poetry at the age of sixteen and joined the high school poetry club where I was introduced to Ginsberg’s “Howl.” I had to sign out for the book at the city library reference desk as it was considered too risqué to put on the open shelf! As an English major at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I was introduced to a wide range of poetry, from Milton to Garcia Lorca. Encouragingly I had a number of poems published in literary journals as an undergraduate. While teaching English at Eastern Illinois University I decided to set aside writing for fine art photography with a promise to myself to return to poetry. After a career of teaching and practicing fine art photography I began writing poetry again after a forty-year hiatus. “Confederate generals...” was begun in 1969 while attending the University of Texas, Austin. The title and two stanzas are all that remain of the original work. I suspect there aren’t many poets who have followed a similar path, but I will say it has provided me with a wealth of material and an eye trained to see, both in words as well as in art.