My exploration into poetry was started by Pati. Pati is my aunt, though due to the closeness of our ages is more like a sister. I’m not sure why I was included and didn’t ask. You know how sometimes you’ll start to type something into your email program, and it will grab a name that you didn’t mean to include? Or maybe she thought I might participate. It was a chain letter of sorts, asking everyone to share their favorite poem. I struggled to even think of a poem, poetry not being my go-to reading, and emailed her back that same sentiment.
As I thought a bit more, I remembered there had been poetry in my youth. The Owl and the Pussycat came readily to mind, as did brillig and the slithy toves. For that matter, all of Dr. Seuss was poetry. As those bits and pieces came to mind, along with some treasured anthologies of, ahem, 50 plus years ago, I commented that my interest in poetry seemed to have been prior to third grade.
Ah, but as one dives further into the creases of memory, other remembrances pop into mind. Some seem a bit like that friend you used to see all the time, but then did not, but you cannot come up with a reason the friendship stopped. It just passed on, as life does. Well, the poet e e cummings was one of those friends. I am fairly certain I had a book of his poetry at one time. Perhaps I will run across it in my safari into the belongings of my life. Or, I might have given it to the friends of the library in my big 800-book purge a decade or so ago. I enjoyed the lack of punctuation and the lowercaseness, but I could not tell you a single poem title today. Fascinating thing, the human brain.
Oh, and one time I had a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. And, wow, just as I am writing this, I remember that I have a signed copy of something by Rod McKuen somewhere. Those were my father’s attempts to introduce me to poetry, but it was at a bad time for our relations, so I did not embrace those. I do, however, remember him reciting Robert Service quite a bit back in the day (1960s). The Cremation of Sam McGee was a particularly animated recitation. I almost typed Robert Frost and that was just something bubbling up to the tip of my fingers spontaneously. Oh yes, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening.
But what set me to laying down these words is what I am doing now. Since I didn’t think I “liked” poetry, I checked out a few books from the library of more recent poets. Still having trouble getting into the point of poetry, I decided to switch to books about poetry. I found a very good one that I did not finish due to other more pressing, aka interesting and fun, reading. Essentially a textbook, A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry, by Gregory Orr, is probably something I’ll pick up again. But I wasn’t ready to study that deeply. I then found a book by Alexander McCall Smith about W. H. Auden.
When searching about poetry, that caught my eye, not because I had any idea who W. H. Auden was, but because I’ve enjoyed reading many of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series written by McCall Smith (who goes by Sandy, according to the Internet). Great little book that is a personal tribute to the poet. I can’t say that it made me want to read Auden, but I really enjoyed his writing. Auden was British, although he moved the United States for much of his professional life. That got me remembering that I have a couple of books of English poetry and wondered if I could a) find them and b) if there was any Auden among the anthologies.
Nope, no Auden. The newest publication date I have is 1965, so he should be there, but is not. Maybe because he wasn’t as popular in England. Oh wait, this book is of poems in English. Another one I have is of poetry from England. Interesting anyway that he is not there, because his contemporaries are. Oh well, what did happen in this journey is even more wonderful, to me.
I pulled off the shelf a small, old book. I love old books. I had to stop buying them because there is just so much room in a life. However, I treasure the ones I have. Some have been read, and some are simply in my collection so they don’t go to the dump somewhere. This one fits in the hand in a way that is special. Actually, it’s about the size of a Kindle Paperwhite, only thicker of course. The pages are thick enough not to seem as if they will tear easily (as some of the older ones do), and the type style is mostly readable, although the titles are in an Old English Font, and the poems are numbered in Roman numerals going up to CCXVI. The book simply feels good for the holding of it.
But the two things that struck me are these, the title/purpose of the book and the age. The book is called POETRY OF THE PEOPLE: COMPRISING POEMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE HISTORY AND NATIONAL SPIRIT OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA, AND POEMS OF THE WORLD WAR. What a title! Originally published in 1903, mine is the enlarged edition with “twenty-seven poems and national anthems of the World War and a brief account, illustrated by representative stanzas, of British and American popular songs of recognized currency at home and at the front.” This edition was published in 1920; both published by The Athenaeum Press, Ginn and Company Proprietors, a leading textbook publisher at the time. The publisher, Edwin Ginn, died in 1914 before this book was published, but in his later years had turned to philanthropy and the American peace movement became his primary concern. Thanks Wikipedia, because knowing that frames what I am seeing and reading in the book. This movement, by the way, predates WWI and he died six months before that began, but the press evidently continued to express his interests.
Friends, the book I hold in my hand today is 100 years old. That is amazing. Amazing in that it was a twenty-first century email that led to me finding a century-old treasure in my book stacks. Amazing in that it exists in terrific shape. Amazing in the history it shares because the poems go back to about 1200. It was used in a poetry class at Drake University and there are some notes here and there about the history related to the poem. Drake, my Alexa friend tells me, is in Des Moines, Iowa and was founded in 1881. I cannot tell if the user was a contemporary of the book, but they could have been. It’s got that crabby little penmanship of the 1920s. At the start of BOOK THIRD --- POEMS OF SCOTLAND : HISTORICAL AND PATRIOTIC, page 143, there is a note stating “Monday to page 201” where there is a poem from 1798 with a note that it is about the French supporting the Irish against England. Oh my.
If this were a podcast, I would likely read the preface aloud as it is a gem. Instead, here is the opening paragraph. The language is so unlike the way we speak or read today as to almost be like a play. In fact, I imagine the Shakespearean Puck, explaining what has led us to this circumstance. “This little volume has a very modest but distinct and, we think, unique purpose, --- to supply the reading public and the schools with a compact body not necessarily of the most highly polished or artistic poems in the English tongue, but of those which are at once most simple, most hearty, most truly characteristic of the people, their tradition and patriotic spirit.” Somehow, that is not a run-on sentence! It goes on to say, “By Poetry of the People we don not mean only ballads of countryside or battlefield or of street or village, hearth or market, not only the production of the folk improviser or his succeeding bard long ago buried behind the hills of anonymity, but poetry that the people possess and occupy (or should occupy) because it is of their blood and bone and sinew ; poetry sometimes by the people and sometimes not, but always for them ; poems that were household words with our fathers and mothers, and lay close to the heart because of the heart ; poems that nowadays beat in the bosom of the Folk and find utterance in the hour of stress ; poems which more often than not are all the truer art because they are not artful.” Four, count ‘em, four semi-colons!
The preface is written by Charles Mills Gayley, who was professor of English, the Classics, and Academic Dean of the University of California at Berkley between the fall of 1889 and his death on July 25, 1932. These words of preface were written on October 7, 1903. He notes about mid-way of the second of two pages that “…we have tired in these excerpts from the Poetry of the People to emphasize the deeper and wider justification of our national pride --- the justification that lies in the blood and speech of generations overseas who knew what patriotism meant long before their children, our immediate ancestors, founded here the liberties which we enjoy.” He closes with a paragraph about the literary merit of some of the inclusions, such as Annie Laurie and Yankee Doodle, and a discussion about even simple verse being part of our literary heritage. “There is, surely, a mean between verses that are cabbage and verses that are caviare. We think that it may be found in that Poetry of the People which grows never old because it is sturdy, sweet, and true --- sufficient to the needs of to-morrow as of yesterday.”
In 1920, people were so much closer to the founding of the modern world that they could see it from there and stay connected. In fact, many would have been alive during the Civil War. It reminds me of my visits to Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, one of the most beautiful places in the world. It was built to house religious relics, including Christ’s crown of thorns. The feeling of being taken back in time and being closer to the reality of a real person was overwhelming.
This book, and the others I found, are doing that for me today, as well as helping me in my 21st century quest to understand poetry. I am awestruck by reading these poems, not because of their poetry so much as the history. Eight hundred years of history, and a book and person, Louise Jones is the name in the flyleaf, that are connected to me across a century. Louise lived at the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority at 1028 25th Street. It’s at a new location, but still associated with Drake. I love the idea of how time loops back on itself.
Another book in the stack is one that was written a little later, in 1928. The poems, here, a categorized by century and then by author. The poems are all pre-1900 and I thought that was odd, but then realized that it probably took some years to create the anthology (it’s over 1350 pages and is a standard size, not small) and by publication there would not have been a lot of well-established poems written yet. This one is British Poetry and Prose: A Book of Readings and on the spine is noted that it is the “Complete Edition.” Published by Houghton Mifflin, it is a textbook. (Now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt after having purchased Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). The thing that took me back in time with this one was in looking up the poetry of the “newer” poets in the later nineteenth century section. I found Thomas Hardy and I love his books. Short, easy poems. Of course, when asked about a poem I liked, I completely forgot about Shakespeare’s sonnets and lot of other standard, historical things I would have read. But the striking thing were the entries for Rudyard Kipling and William Butler Yeats, who were still alive when the book was published. They could have had their hands on this book. Okay, one just like It.
I do not know anything about the owner or owners of this book. The part of the flyleaf that would have had a name, and maybe a date, is torn out. Perhaps I know that whoever passed the book out of their life was very private and did not want their name passed to the next owner. With these two books, and a few others I found, I am starting from a beginning that will lead me into more current poetry and, I hope, a new appreciation. Or not. At least I will have a foundation. Reading some of these (there are hundreds, maybe thousands, within the all) will provide some history and, even in not appreciating poetry, I will learn about poetry. And with that, I leave this essay with a newfound interest in e e cummings and a poem with a gold horse, and the story of Diana and Actaeon (yes, I looked that up). Perhaps it will lead me to an essay about The Sun Horse, by Catherine Anthony Clark – another story for another day.
All in green went my love riding
By e e cummings
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.
Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.
Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.
Four tall stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.