Woodcuts for Americana Poems Summary

In "The Mountain Climber," the mountain climber risks his life to scale a mountain. Through wind, snow and rugged terrain, he braves to climb the mountain. There are warnings such as funeral vultures and a skull rotting from another climbed who died before him. He still climbs however. Tolson repeats the same stanza at the beginning and ending of the poem and ends both stanzas with a question mark. He questions why the mountain climber chooses to risk his life time and time again.

In "Old Man Michael," there is an old white farmer. He looks frail and ghostly. The tares, or evil roots, of wheat hurt his feet. The black men laugh at him until the farmer says to stop blaming the weather and natural world for the bad wheat crop. Instead, the tares are the...