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Whatever verdict time and the critics might place on My Country, there was no question but that it was immediately effective on its first hearers. It was also full of resonance, and even its more awkward, elocutionary passages had the ring of sincerity. It made its deepest impression as an attempt to bring poetry back to the general understanding of Americans, to make its language that of the commonalty of citizens.
Simon and Schuster printed a first edition of 10,000 copies of My Country and gave Author Davenport a $1,000 advance. The publishers apparently believed, with some reason, that My Country was likely to become the John Brown's Body of 1944.
The Author. Born in South Bethlehem, Pa., the son of a vice president of Bethlehem Steel Corp., Russell Wheeler ("Mitch") Davenport wrote poetry for ten years before entering journalism, wrote none for 14 years afterwards. He went to Thacher School in California, twice won the Croix de guerre in World War I. Back in the U.S. he went to Yale, where he published poems in the Lit. He is married to Novelist Marcia Davenport (The Valley of Decision), daughter of the late soprano Alma Gluck.