What if you had a great voice but didn’t have anything great to say? Or maybe you had something great to say, but didn’t have a great voice. Hey, It happens …

Then there are some who have not only a great voice but something great to say.

Today is Irish poet, Paul Muldoon’s birthday. You can visit his website

http://www.paulmuldoon.net/recordings.php4

and listen to some of his recordings that he has been kind enough to put online. You will really like his voice. I like his poem “At Least They Were Not Speaking French,” (though since my ancestors were both Irish and French, it probably has a different signficance to me than he means). He describes the deaths of two uncles against this nonsense refrain “fol-de-rol fol-de-rol fol-de-rol-di-do.”

Among his many accomplishments, Paul Muldoon is a professor at Princeton, chair of the university’s Lewis Center for the Arts, and poetry editor for the New Yorker magazine. In 2003, he won the Pulitzer for Moy Sand and Gravel.

More Irish Poet’s Audio Links:

Seamus Heany on The Poetry Archive - you will need realplayer for this page

Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night. If Dylan Thomas’ voice doesn’t blow you away, nothing will!

Sam Walter Foss was a New England librarian and poet. He was born on June 19, 1858 in New Hampshire, went to college in Rhode Island and served as librarian for the Somerville Public Library in Massachusetts beginning in 1898. His most famous poem was The House by The Side of the Road.

There are some really good articles online about him, such as Minor Poet with a Major Message, with some examples of his poetry.

J. Dennis Robinson’s article, Sam Walter Foss was NH Poet Laureate for the Common Man, says that Sam rocked! I agree. I like many a dialectic poem and this article includes a passage from one Foss wrote:

“In another poem, Foss plays the part of a storeowner who tries to join the local church, because he knows that is the best way to attract customers. Unwilling to have him as a member, the church elders stall the merchant by telling him to go off and talk to God. But the merchant returns a few weeks later and tells the shocked elders that he has, indeed, talked to God about joining their church. What did the Lord say? – they ask. The shopkeeper repeats the conversation:

“I’m trying to git in,” sez I, “to the church of Elder Ford,
An they won’t let me in at all.” “Don’t worry,” sez the Lord.
“You’re not the only one,” sez He, “they’ve laid upon the shelf.
I’ve tried ten years without success to git in there myself,”

That’s painfully funny, and it also reminds me of another poem my grandfather told me once that I’ll have to go hunt up. But to stay on point for now - it’s true Foss’ books are out of print, but some of them are now available on google books. That’s where I found this poem:
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Sarah Helen Whitman, as you may know, was engaged to marry Edgar Allan Poe in the year before he died. I’m not going to go into her biographical information. You can find that out readily enough on Wikipedia, and there is also a link on our poem page, The Portrait, to a more in-depth account of the courtship, engagement and break-up of the unreliable Mr. Poe and the ether-sniffing Mrs. Whitman. It was a very short-lived engagement and in the following year — the year he died — Poe was even romancing another woman.

Sarah Helen Whitman wrote The Portrait to Edgar Allen Poe many years after his death. During those years, she often defended him against criticism and slander.

Wouldn’t it be all so romantic and tidy to say that after his death, Mrs. Whitman deeply regretted not marrying him? Maybe, but I get the feeling she simply felt he deserved better posthumous treatment than he was getting. Whether you like the poem or not, I hope you agree that her last stanza proved prophetic indeed:
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Here’s a comment that was left on the poll page for Fueled by Marcie Hans:

One of my primary school teachers forced every single class she encountered not only to learn this poem, but to repeat it in an affected voice and use over-exaggerated mannerisms. She also declined to enter into any meaningful discussion of it. And for some strange reason never showed or discussed other poetry. The result of her inadequate teaching skills (I will speak of myself only) was a hatred of poetry of any form which in my adult years I tried to address. Even to this day when I read this particular poem I feel angry and this is not how I want to view this poem.

I’m not going to defend our presentation — I rather like it and you just can’t please everyone. This particular poem is being read by an 11-year old boy. Nobody sent us one they think is better and even if they did, I appreciate and enjoy this 7th grader’s efforts.

I’m awful sorry Carroll had such a bad introduction to poetry in primary school. No doubt a great many of us have had encounters with teachers who made learning some particular subject less than an ideal experience. In my case, math was not my strong suit. Got my first F in fifth grade and I recall the teacher calling me “dumb” in front of the entire class, which was pretty mean. But not as mean as the fact that she actually had a “dumb row” where she made all the students who were doing poorly sit and she stuck me in it that marking period. I had just skipped a grade as, a matter of fact, was a year younger than everyone else in the class. If I had any say, maybe I could have pointed out to her that I had missed a half year of math and it was her job to help me. But it never occurred to me. I was very easily embarrassed. Talking back was certainly not allowed. The humiliation spurred me to study math much much harder until I brought my grade up to a C. But these things sting and stay with you a long time.

For many, poetry is a boring subject that they don’t get in the first place, so I can’t understand why a teacher would take the approach she did in Carroll’s class, unless she was a frustrated actress who saw it as an opportunity to perform.
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