“I doubt that there are in the whole world a thousand men who actually read long poems with pleasure and these are chiefly senile “ ~ H. L. Mencken
Any poem over 100 lines was a long poem to Mr. Mencken, but in spite of being such a great poetry lover, I must admit that I too prefer short poems. Often in school, I thought that some poems were only included in the curriculum just because the teachers had been tortured with them when they went to school. Consequently I tend not to put too many long poems on Reely’s Poetry Pages.
The Song of Hiawatha is one long long poem. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some parts of it I actually like and know by heart:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon …
I know more but that’s all I ever had to say and the kids would groan and take off. They never knew about the Naked Bear and the lullabye — ewa-yea my little owlet — because they just wouldn’t stick around to hear it.
Longfellow had another extraordinarily long one with Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie. His son wrote this recollection: There was a man at Newsport who, after being introduced to my father, said, in the most impressive manner, “Oh! Mr. Longfellow, I have long wished to meet you, as I am one of the few people who appreciate your ‘Evangeline.’” Read the rest of this entry »
Um, sorry Glen – but this was written by Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) and was published around 1909, whereupon it became very popular and was often quoted in magazines and journals and included in devotional calendars. Glen called the song “Less of Me.” Edgar Guest called it:
A Creed
Let me be a little kinder,
Let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those around me,
Let me praise a little more;
Let me be, when I am weary
Just a little bit more cheery,
Let me serve a little better
Those that I am striving for.
Let me be a little braver
When temptation bids me waver,
Let me strive a little harder
To be all that I should be;
Let me be a little meeker
With the brother that is weaker,
Let me think more of my neighbor
And a little less of me.
Let me be a little sweeter,
Make my life a bit completer
By doing what I should do
Every minute of the day;
Let me toil, without complaining,
Not a humble task disdaining,
Let me face the summons calmly
When death beckons me away.
See Breakfast Table Chat (1914) at p. 130, by Edgar Albert Guest. Click on the link to see the poem on google books.
Also, please note that Edgar Guest named several of his poems “A Creed.” There are 3 with that same title in the 1914 edition of Breakfast Table Chat, which is being linked to. The other poems entitled “A Creed” appear on pages 53 and 159.
The one that begins “Let me be a littler kinder …” is on page 130 as referenced above. The poem was often reprinted without a title and without the last stanza.
Power is an interesting them for a poem since the word itself can generally fall into one of these categories: physical power, emotional power, mental power. It would undoubtedly be ideal to possess all three at once, but we do admire power in any form. I would say ‘except evil,’ but some folks do admire power even when it is evil; otherwise there would not be such a great interest in crime in general and organized crime groups, like the American and Sicilian Mafia, and the many other criminal cartels spread across the world. Dictators and religious cults are other examples of power put to bad uses.
Here is a poem simply entitled “Power” that takes a look at one woman’s power. See if you agree with it:
Power
Living in the earth-deposits of our history
Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.
Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil
She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.
Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach is a poetry book in which teachers share poetry that has had a motivational impact on their lives and profession. It is divided into different sections from Hearing the Call, Cherishing the Work, On the Edge, Holding On, In the Moment, to Daring To Lead with a total of 88 poems by Rumi, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Rainier Marie Rilke, Marcie Hans and Anne Sexton, just to name a few.
Each poem has a short introduction from the teacher who submitted it telling how the poem had an impact on his or her life. One commentary tells how an Emily Dickinson poem, Chariot, helped a young girl cope wih the death of her mother and later become a teacher. Another teacher shares how Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar has helped her deal with the tragedies affecting some of her students, even dying young.
Among the contributors are college professors and presidents, principals, elementary, middle and high school teachers, organizational consultants, from all over the USA and as far away as Israel.
Is it just for teachers? Well, I don’t think so. I think it would be especially good to give to people who say they don’t like poetry because they had a teacher who made the subject a drag. I’d give it to students for the insight they would gain on the profession of teaching. I’d give it to parents. Aren’t parents teachers and often in need of some courage bolstering? The bell never rings for parents. Read the rest of this entry »
Last night I came across a website selling the “Edgar Allan Poe Ultimate Audio Collection” that you can download immediately for $12.95. Savor 9 hours of inside the mind of Edgar Allan Poe, it says.
Sound like a good deal? Well, it’s not. All the files come from Librivox and are already online available to download for free. Why would anyone want to pay $12.95 to download something you can download for free? The only reason I can think of is they don’t know it’s freely available.
How do I know they are from Librivox? Well, I have seen these same files being sold on CDs on eBay before, only on eBay the seller acknowledges that Librivox is the source. Here’s the link to the entire free ’shurtagal’ Poe audio readings: http://librivox.org/edgar-allan-poe-poems-by-edgar-allan-poe/. Here’s the site where they are being sold. Compare the running times. What a coincidence!
I’ve actually had occasion to listen to shurtagal’s Annabel Lee when I was looking for particular version of the poem (The Griswold version), but it wasn’t what I needed in terms of the words. I had to use the reading by Mr. H. Jeong.
So, what is Librivox (for anyone who doesn’t already know)? It is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks and poetry, read by volunteers and released into the public domain. As of July 2009, it boasts a catalog of 2,500 unabridged books and shorter works available to download – FREE. Read the rest of this entry »
is a poetry book in which teachers share poetry that has had a motivational impact on their lives and profession. It is divided into different sections from Hearing the Call, Cherishing the Work, On the Edge, Holding On, In the Moment, to Daring To Lead with a total of 88 poems by Rumi, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Rainier Marie Rilke, Marcie Hans and Anne Sexton, just to name a few.
