The Long Black Veil, by Robert Cooperman

Robert Cooperman’s new collection of poems, The Long Black Veil, builds a narrative around the spare and haunting ballad of the 1950s. Written by Marijohn Wilkins and Danny Dill, and recorded among others by Johnny Cash, the ballad tells the story of a man who goes to his death rather than reveal that he and his best friend’s wife were lovers. Cooperman includes the ballad at the start of his collection.

Cooperman’s poems don’t change the details of the ballad and instead flesh out the spare narrative. In Cooperman’s version, Miller Waggoner and Miller Ritchfield have been best friends from childhood. After Conner’s parents die in an accident, he leaves town and later returns with a new wife, Emma. As soon as he sees her Miller knows right away that he loves her but vows to suffer in silence. The three spend many happy hours together. Conner leaves his new wife behind under the care of Miller while he tends to business in another town. Emma is angry at her husband’s temporary desertion, so soon after their marriage, and one thing leads to another. Both lovers feel guilt for their affair, but they are filled with passion as well. As they plan to leave town together, Miller is blamed for the murder of a banker. His alibi is that he was with Emma at the time of the murder, but he refuses to use it because it would uncover their betrayal of his best friend.

I have never understood, either in the ballad itself or in these poems, why Miller or Emma doesn’t reveal the truth at the trial, given that his life is at stake. Of course, a woman’s honor and good name are at stake too, as well as one friend’s trust in another. But neither of them budges, and Miller is found guilty and is hanged. Cooperman seems to call attention to the illogic of their silence, for in these poems Emma and Miller return to the matter over and over.

Cooperman narrates the poems in the voices of the various character, each one revealing his or her inner thoughts about the events in which they’re involved. The effect is reminiscent of Cooperman’s Colorado gold mining country poems, as well as of Edgar Lee Masters and E. A. Robinson.

The most interesting aspect of these poems is the story they build around the survivors. Conner senses the truth about his wife’s affair, and confronts her. She admits to the truth. As a result, they are estranged for the rest of their lives, though each dies wishing for forgiveness.

This in effect undermines the romanticism of the original narrative, which insists on the purity of love and the long suffering fidelity of the lover left behind. She does not suffer alone. Others, primarily her husband, suffer with her, and ultimately both their lives are ruined.