When I was in high school, a friend loaned me a book of poetry by this man.
At this point I've mercifully forgotten whether she inflicted Listen to the Warm or Seasons in the Sun on me, but I remember reading a few selections, not being impressed, and then mumbling something about how much I enjoyed stuff like
It’s nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you’re still alive.
If nothing else
it says to you–
clear as a high hill air,
uncomfortable
as diving through cold water–
I’m here.
However wretchedly I feel,
I feel.
The same thing happened a few years later when a friend gave me a copy of one of
this actor's books of poetry. I read one or two lines, cringed, and lied through my teeth the next time I saw her about how moving and sensitive it all was. It was not pleasant either time, and I sometimes found myself wondering if there was something wrong with
me for thinking that Rod McKuen was a kitschmeister who played to the lowest common denominator, or that Leonard Nimoy should stick to acting and photography.
Part of the reason I couldn't stand either man's work was that I started reading genuinely good poetry at a very early age; I found and started memorizing selections from my mother's college poetry anthologies in my early teens, and soon could quote Donne, Shakespeare, Dickinson, and Whitman whether my audience liked it or not (I was particularly fascinated by the Calamus section of Leaves of Grass, which I correctly intuited were not about Whitman's love for women - but that is neither here nor there). Compared to these giants, Rod McKuen in particular was very small beer indeed.
I don't read nearly as much poetry as I used to, but I still have some favorites; I've loved Richard Wilbur's work ever since I was lucky enough to take a couple of classes with him in college, while certain of Geoffrey Hill's poems have haunted me for years. I still love Donne and Dante, Louise Labe and Jane Yolen, and I still can quote the classics when appropriate. One of my favorite recent books is Seamus Heaney's marvelous translation of Beowulf, which begins with:
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.
There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes,
a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.
This terror of the hall-troops had come far.
A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on
as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.
In the end each clan on the outlying coats
beyond the whale-road had to yield to him
and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.
and only gets better.
Good poetry distills life into a few choice lines, taking personal emotions and thoughts and making them universal; has anyone done a finer job of identifying the briefness and fragility of human life, and the awareness that death is ever present no matter how busy we are, than Emily Dickinson in these few words:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
or made clearer the stupidity and waste of war than Wilfred Owen:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Humans being humans, romantic love is the subject of an overwhelming number of poems, from the
Song of Songs on down to the verses that pimply faced kid in Creative Writing submitted to the literary magazine. Some love poems are exuberant, like Donne's
To Mistress, Going To Bed:
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
My mine of precious stones, my empery;
How am I blest in thus discovering thee!
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.
while others, like the dying Keats' message to his beloved Fanny Brawne, are quietly tragic:
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.
while still others, like Anne Bradstreet's
To My Dear and Loving Husband, are full of the contentment of a solid life with a compatible mate:
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of Gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Alas, the vast majority of humans are not so eloquent, nor so skilled, as Keats, Donne, or Bradstreet, or even Rod McKuen. For every good or great love poem, there are dozens that are forgettable, mediocre and cliched.
And of course, this being Saturday night, it is incumbent upon me to point out that there are some that are just plain terrible.
Tonight I bring not books, but Love Poems So Bad They're Good. It's the feast of St. Valentine on Tuesday, after all, the good saint who supposedly sent encouraging notes to his friends signed "Your Valentine," and whose feast day became a time for lovers to express their feelings. Even if modern scholars are not quite sure which of the fourteen martyrs named "Valentine" or "Valentinus" is commemorated on the fourteenth of February, or why fourteen celibate Roman martyrs, should be the patrons of carnal lover, that hasn't stopped modern chocolatiers, restauranteurs, or greeting card manufacturers from inundating malls, drugstores, and gift shops with hearts, cupids, Swarovski crystals, and bright red polyester lingerie honor of the lovers' holiday.
I'm not going to inflict fourteen terrible love poems, one for each saint, upon you, my faithful readers. Even I have my limits. A nice half dozen should suffice upon this dark February night:
I Loved A Lass, George Wither - George Wither was a late Renaissance/early modern poet who had a sprightly fashion sense, a penchant for getting thrown in jail for writing satires like Abuses Whipt and Stript, and deep religious convictions. He began as a courtier of good family and ended up siding with Parliament during the English Civil War, which did not help him during the Restoration.
I Loved A Lass, Wither's best remembered poem, keeps turning up in anthologies in spite of the drearily conventional meter, banal imagery, and a refrain that will haunt your nightmares for years:
I loved a lass, a fair one,
As fair as e'er was seen;
She was indeed a rare one,
Another Sheba Queen:
But, fool as then I was,
I thought she loved me too:
But now, alas! she's left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
Her hair like gold did glister,
Each eye was like a star,
She did surpass her sister,
Which pass'd all others far;
She would me 'honey' call,
She'd--O she'd kiss me too!
But now, alas! she's left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
In summer time to Medley
My love and I would go;
The boatmen there stood read'ly
My love and me to row.
For cream there would we call,
For cakes and for prunes too;
But now, alas! she's left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
Her cheeks were like the cherry,
Her skin was white as snow;
When she was blithe and merry
She angel-like did show;
Her waist exceeding small,
The fives did fit her shoe:
But now, alas! she's left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
In summer time or winter
She had her heart's desire;
I still did scorn to stint her
From sugar, sack, or fire;
The world went round about,
No cares we ever knew:
But now, alas! she's left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
To maidens' vows and swearing
Henceforth no credit give;
You may give them the hearing,
But never them believe;
They are as false as fair,
Unconstant, frail, untrue:
For mine, alas! hath left me,
Falero, lero, loo!
Cream...cakes...
prunes???? Size five shoes? Did they even
have shoe sizes in the 17th century? And just what did Wither mean by "Falero, lero, loo"? Was this a way of covering a shoe fetish? A hunting call as the Lass and Wither rowed about in search of sustenance? A quotation from the Queen of Sheba?
Alas, Wither never elaborated on these important questions, leaving future generations to wonder at the mysteries concealed in this simple poem. One thing is clear, though: future generations of courting Britons have come to prefer strawberries over prunes with their cream. Whether it is because of George Wither must remain forever unknown.
The Temple of Chastity, by Mary Robinson - Mary Robinson was an actress best known for her turn as Perdita in The Winter's Tale in the late 1770s. A lovely, intelligent, and talented woman, she attracted the attention of George, the Prince of Wales, who sent her adoring letters under the name "Florizel" during his successful quest to make her his mistress.
Unfortunately, the Prince was about as faithful as a young and restless bonobo, and all too soon Florizel dumped Perdita for Mrs. Fitzherbert (and Grace Elliott, and Lady Jersey, and Caroline of Brunswick, and Lady Hertford, and Lady Conygham, and God knows how many others). Poor Mary, who could no longer appear on the stage after her royal affair, had to turn to writing to support herself. She wrote six novels, two plays, a feminist manifesto, and an unfinished autobiography, both during and after her fifteen year relationship with British soldier Banastre Tarleton.
It was her poetry that won Mary Robinson the nickname "The English Sappho." Her longest poetic work was the sonnet sequence Sappho and Phaon, which includes the following ringing defense of chastity over love:
High on a rock, coeval with the skies,
A temple standard, reared by immortal powers
To Chastity divine! Ambrosial flowers,
Twining round icicles, in columns rise,
Mingling with pendant gems of orient dyes!
Piercing the air, a golden crescent towers,
Veiled by transparent clouds; while smiling hours
Shake from their varying wings celestial joys!
The steps of spotless marble, scattered o'er
With deathless roses armed with many a thorn,
Lead to the altar. On the frozen floor,
Studded with tea-drops, petrified with scorn,
Pale vestals kneel the goddess to adore,
While Love, his arrows broke, retires forlorn.
Although it's little surprise why Robinson would take pleasure in writing about Chastity after her experiences with her husband (who cheated on her from the beginning of their marriage), Prince George (who reneged on a promise to give her an annuity) or Banastre Tarleton (who abandoned her for an heiress), the image of Love with his arrows broke is just a bit too gleeful for comfort. And what sort of ambrosial flowers can survive twining about icicles? And if the vestals are so rapt in adoration of Chastity, why are they so pale?
Trust Thou Thy Love, by John Ruskin - John Ruskin, best known today as an art critic and early champion of the Pre-Raphaelites, was a prolific writer on many subjects. Fairy tales, gardening, defenses of handicrafts over industrial production, art criticism...Ruskin's range seemed endless. He was an early advocate of historic preservation, and coined now-common terms such as "pathetic fallacy" and "excrescence." If ever there was an Eminent Victorian, Ruskin was it.
He even wrote poetry, such as this poignant little selection, and seldom has there been such an eminently Victorian meditation on Love:
Trust thou thy Love: if she be proud, is she not sweet?
Trust thou thy Love: if she be mute, is she not pure?
Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet;
Fail, Sun and Breath!—yet, for thy peace, She shall endure.
Unfortunately, Ruskin's omnicompetence did not extend to his relations with the opposite sex. His marriage to Effie Gray was a disaster after he learned on their wedding night that - horrors! - women, unlike statues, had pubic hair, and after six years of enforced celibacy she obtained an annulment and married the painter John Everett Millais. Ruskin's only subsequent romance, with Rose la Touche, was colored by the 29 year difference in their ages (he claimed that he fell in love with her when she was his nine year old drawing student, although he did not approach her as a potential suitor until she was eighteen). He seems to have been attracted primarily to much younger women, but there is not a scrap of evidence that he ever crossed the line from adoration to molestation.
This is what makes this little quatrain so problematic. Just what does Ruskin mean? Is he addressing Effie? Rose? Someone else? And how does this tone of breathless adoration square with his own less than perfect romantic history?
Maureen, by John Todhunter - John Todhunter, born in Dublin to a Quaker family, was a multi-talented man. Originally trained as a doctor, he also taught English at Alexandra College in his natal city, then traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. Eventually he returned to the British Isles, married, and settled in the London suburb of Chiswick, home to a small literary colony. He helped to found the Irish Literary Society, translated Heinrich Heine's Buch der Lieder into English, and wrote poems, plays, and literary criticism.
One of his earlier works is the following ode to an Irish lass:
O, you plant the pain in my heart with your wistful eyes,
Girl of my choice, Maureen!
Will you drive me mad for the kisses your shy, sweet mouth denies,
Maureen?
Like a walking ghost I am, and no words to woo,
White rose of the West, Maureen:
For it's pale you are, and the fear that's on you is over me too,
Maureen!
Sure it's one complaint that's on us, asthore, this day,
Bride of my dreams, Maureen:
The smart of the bee that stung us his honey must cure, they say,
Maureen!
I'll coax the light to your eyes, and the rose to your face,
Mavourneen, my own Maureen!
When I feel the warmth of your breast, and your nest is my arm's embrace,
Maureen!
O where was the King o' the World that day—only me?
My one true love, Maureen!
And you the Queen with me there, and your throne in my heart, machree,
Maureen!
Although Todhunter's translation of Heine was much praised in its day, this sample of his original work is, well - would "awkward" be accurate, do you think? Or perhaps "incoherent"? "Clunky" is another one, especially "When I feel the warmth of your breast, and your nest is my arm's embrace" or "Will you drive me mad for the kisses your shy, sweet mouth denies"? And why o why are Irish words like "asthore" and "mavourneen" plunked in the middle of a poem in English? And just what does "the smart of the bee that stung us his honey must cure"
mean?
Most puzzling of all, Todhunter's wife, whom he married after his Grand Tour, was named Dora. So just who the blazes was Maureen?
Dear Love, Do You Remember? by Julia A. Moore, "The Sweet Singer of Michigan" - no diary devoted to bad poetry would be complete without a nod to the best worst female poet of all time. Julia A. Moore, a Michigan farmwife turned poet, became wildly popular in the late 19th century when review copies of her first book were sent out accompanied by a mocking cover letter. Mark Twain was so enchanted by Moore's particular brand of sentimental verse that he based the character of Emmeline Grangerford, the ultra-sentimental (and dead) poetaster in Huckleberry Finn, which should give you an idea of the average quality of her work.
Although Moore specialized in commemorating disasters, like a bridge collapse, or sudden death, like a small child choking on a piece of beef, she also wrote the following tribute to her long suffering husband, Frederick:
Dearest one, do you remember,
As we sat side by side,
How you told me that you loved me,
Asked me to be your bride.
And you told me we'd be happy,
Through all the years to come,
If we ever would prove faithful,
As in the days when we were young.
Oh! how well do I remember,
The kind and loving words,
And now as I sat dreaming,
The thoughts my memory stirs.
But the days have passed before me,
And the scenes of long ago,
But I can never forget the
Days that have passed o'er.
Oh! how clearly I remember
The days when we were young,
How we would tell to each other
Of happy times to come,
And as we would sit together,
That dear loved one and I,
Oh, sat dreaming of the future,
And childhood days gone by.
Dearest love, do you remember
The first time that we met --
Our youthful days have gone, love,
I hope you love me yet,
Now we are growing old, love,
Our heads will soon be gray,
May we ever love each other
Till from earth we pass away.
This tribute to Frederick, the love of her life, all but begs to be accompanied by the tuneful wheezings of a parlor organ, harmonica, or slightly out of tune mandolin, as family and friends gather 'round the gaslight or the kerosene lantern to hear Cousin Wilhelmina (the one who took voice lessons at the female seminary) warble out its wholesome verses.
Although this may seem to be a poem of age, not youth, Moore wrote it sometime between 1876, when her first book was unleashed on the delighted public, and 1878, when Frederick, tired of his wife being a laughingstock, ordered her to stop publishing. That would have made her thirty-six, and Frederick a few years older, when she eulogized their courtship of all of twenty years past. Even by the standards of the 19th century neither Julia nor her husband would have been considered elderly, so the nostalgic vein of the poem is, to say the least, puzzling.
I Saw Her in Cabbage Time: A Dutch Melody, by "Slocum Slugs, Esq." - nothing is known about "Slocum Slugs, Esq.," except that his first and seemingly only published work was this little poem:
I saw her first in Cabbage time,
She was a-cutting kraut—
She’d stop the cutter, now and then,
To turn the head about;
And as she’d salt it in a tub
And stamp it down awhile
Upon her fresh and rosy lip
Reposed a witching smile.
I saw her next in Winter time
And still she gaily smiled;
For there upon the cooking-stove
Her grub was being boiled;
Around the huge and greasy pot,
The steam came pouring out;
And from the smell I knew that she
Was cooking “speck” and kraut.
When next I saw her, in the Spring,
She smiled not as before:
A heavy weight was on her heart—
The kraut was “all no more!”
The pot she used to cook it in
Was eaten up with rust;
The cutter hung upon the wall
‘Mid spider webs and dust.
That's right. The poem ends with the cabbage cutter hanging neglected on the wall, the sauerkraut either eaten or carried away, the pot now rusted and the sweet Dutch girl with a heavy weight on her heart, not a witching smile on her lips.
Just why this is so is never explained. Did the girl run out of cabbage? Did someone dump out the kraut as it pickled? Did the anonymous narrator leave her forlornly cooking as he ambled off to other adventures? Or - shocking! - was she heavy with something perhaps more tangible than a broken heart, and thus too ashamed and pregnant to chop and boil and brush the spider webs away from her utensils?
That such a seemingly banal little poem can conceal a tragedy as old as deceiving men and trusting girls is tribute to the power of the written word, as well as the attraction of a pretty young thing with a gift for down home cooking.
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And so - what lousy love poems have you read? Or written? Or found in your beloved's greeting card? Have you given your sweetheart a Blue Mountain Arts Valentine replete with heartfelt schlock? A Hallmark with a sentimental ode to your spouse? No need to be shy....
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