REELY'S POETRYBLOG

I recently picked up 100 Plus American Poems in a used book store. It’s a small thin paperback and easy to carry around in my purse. Handy to have when I have a few minutes waiting somewhere and want something to read. I wouldn’t say it is dominated by any one poet although it does have a fair selection of Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Ogden Nash and Walt Whitman. It also has Eletelephony by Laura Richards:

One there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant –
No! no! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone —

I’m sure many people told Laura Richards how much fun it is to read this poem to a child.

And it has Moo! by Robert Hillyer:

Summer is over, the old cow said,
And they’ll shut me up in a draughty shed
To milk me by lamplight in the cold,
But I won’t give much for I am old.

I wonder how many people told Mr. Hillyer how this poem brought tears to their eyes.

What I like best about this little book are the photographs by students matched up to the poems from the Scholastic-Kodak Photography Awards from 1964-1969.

Next time you’re in Half-Price Books or at the library, you might want to check it out, or just stick it on your next Amazon order. There are several pages of used book sellers who have it, even as low as 12 cents. The link I included above is to the page with a picture of the book.

I was watching a few Bye Bye Birdie songs today. For me, they never get old. One Last Kiss is really my favorite from that movie. Other singers have done it: I had a tape I made from an album by Bobby Rydell with all the songs and his One Last Kiss was pretty good, but then you gotta love just about anything Rydell sings. The man has always had style. You can also listen to Bobby Vee singing it on youtube. But no one does it quite the same as Jesse Pearson in the movie: “bay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-bee, just give me one last kiss.” An Amazon reviewer complains that on the soundtrack, although it does get sung all the way through, it’s totally different than in the movie.

There is scant information about Jesse online. Sadly, he is the only one in the Bye Bye Birdie cast who doesn’t have a wikipedia entry and I do hope someone who knew him corrects that omission someday. Doesn’t seem right. He really was the perfect Conrad in the film.

His IMDB entry doesn’t even say how tall he was but in the musical, he towered over 5′5″ Ann Margret, who only came up to his shoulder, and was at least a whole head taller than 5′8″ Bobby Rydell. In the gym rehearsal scene, he is taller than Dick Van Dyke, which you can see when Dick is standing next to Pearson at one point (when Mareen Stapleton comes over). Van Dyke was reportedly 6′1″”. But Jesse Pearson had boots with heels on, so it’s hard to say from that.

I did find this video on youtube with Jesse Pearson reciting Pushing the Clouds Away:

Pushing the Clouds Away
(Lyrics by Rod McKuen,
music by Anita Kerr, narrated by Jesse Pearson)

Clouds are not the cheeks of angels, you know
They’re only clouds.
Friendly sometimes, but you can never be sure.
If I had longer arms I’d push the clouds away
or I’d make them hang above the water
somewhere else,

But I’m just a man who needs and wants,
mostly things he’ll never have.
Looking for that thing thats hardest to find:
himself.

I’ve been going a long time now
along the way I’ve learned some things.
You have to make the good times yourself,
take the little times and make them big times,
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren’t so good.
I’ve never been able to push
the clouds away by myself.
Help me.
Please?

from The Sea: San Sebastian Strings (available on Amazon)

More info:
Rod McKuen’s Flight Plan 10 Oct 2002: More About Jesse Pearson
Jesse Pearson on IMDB

I have a couple of poems today from Hayden Carruth. Today is his 87th birthday (Happy Birthday!).

I was reading his poem, Prepare, which he wrote for his wife:

“Why don’t you write me a poem that will prepare me for your
death?” you said.
It was a rare day here in our climate, bright and sunny. I didn’t feel like
dying that day.
I didn’t even want to think about it — my lovely knees and bold
shoulders broken open, …
read the entire poem on his website

The poem doesn’t mention the afterlife per se. Still, I think about it when I read mostly anything about dying, and often I have wondered why so many religions teach that there is an afterlife, but yet when someone dies, no one seems to believe it. Perhaps it is the shock of permanent physical separation. You can think you’re prepared for it, but you never really are.

I just saw an episode of the TV series, House, with a segment on the same topic Friday evening. I’m not a fan of this show, featuring Hugh Laurie as the rakish doctor who finds it necessary to be a crusty snide cynic 24/7, but everyone puts up with it because he’s “the best doctor we have.” I have a sarcastic streak myself, but at least I have a sense of when it’s not appropriate and this character just doesn’t.

Being too preoccupied with my notebook to locate the clicker and change the channel, I listened to it and became interested when House is puzzled by a patient who sticks a knife in an electrical socket in an apparent suicide attempt. The patient tells House he was just trying to take a visit to the afterlife. House tells him there is no such thing. But the patient knows there is. This gets under House’s skin so much that he also sticks a knife in an electric socket. Does this strike you as absolutely 100% ludicrous? I know, but that is how TV series get: the longer they go on, the weirder they get. At the end of the show, House reveals he saw nothing in his comments to a dead patient.

So evidently, because the almighty Dr. House saw nothing, he can apprise his patients who believe in a hereafter that there is none, with a lot more authority. Like the patient, I wouldn’t believe him either. My own experiences have shown me that there is a hereafter, and I also know it is good. I would just assume if House saw nothing, the hereafter network would cancel him.

Back to Hayden Carruth, here’s another poem, The Cows At Night, you can hear on poets.org

The moon was like a full cup tonight,
too heavy, and sank in the mist
soon after dark, leaving for light

faint stars and the silver leaves
of milkweed beside the road,
gleaming before my car.

Yet I like driving at night
in summer and in Vermont:
listen to the whole poem

This has nothing to do with the afterlife at all. It just brought back a memory of the cows in Vermont, riding down the road with my grandfather, little city girl, and asking him if the cows slept standing up at night. He just laughed.

I remember my first acquaintance with reading Robert Burns’ poetry, young as I was. The first thing I found out was that unbeknownst to me, I was already acquainted with his works through music because everyone sang Auld Lang Syne every year. I also already knew the song, Coming Through the Rye, and I did like Scottish folk songs, like Loch Lomond (still do, but now I know a lot more). Reading his poetry was a little harder, but I persevered and came to understand and appreciate the dialect. I never heard anyone recite Burns’ poetry till I was older.

I imagine with today’s resources, it must be a lot easier for students to find an audio of any given Burns work. Youtube has a lot.

Here is one of many videos on youtube featuring The Banks O’ Doon. The link goes to the poem page with the first version of the poem, in which there was a time at least, when the false lover was true. Song lyrics below. So sad but so beautiful.

Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu’ o’ care!
Thou’lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed–never to return!

Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And fondly sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Fu’ sweet upon its flowering tree;
But my fause luver stole my rose,
And, ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.

More Resources:
BBC - Burns’ Poetry - Text and Audio
Learning and Teaching Scotland - 5-14 Curriculum
Robert Burns National Heritage Park

Perserverance and dedication in the face of obstacles is a great thing but only when the thing you are being persistent about is also good.

Here is a poem from Edward Carpenter, who died on this day in 1929.

BEETHOVEN.

For, as a lonely watcher of the night,
When all men sleep, sees the tumultuous stars
Move forward from the deep in squadrons bright,
And notes them, he through this life’s prison bars
Heard all night long the spheric music clear.

Very inspiring, I suppose, in portraying Beethoven as a musical genius, despite deafness and other obstacles in his life. But, a very interesting choice, when you think about Beethoven and his custody fight for his nephew. There’s another area where Beethoven’s unusual persistence demonstrated itself, and no lie or dirty tactic was beneath him to achieve that goal.

Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was better known for his socialist philosophies and activism than for his poetry. He was openly homosexual in a place and time period when that was dangerous. Indeed, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) lived during most of the same time period, and ended up on trial in the same country, and went to jail.

More resources:
Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure: And Other Essays by Edward Carpenter
The Edward Carpenter Forum