Rhyme Time? Wait, It's OK!

Look, I know that most readers don’t read poetry. How do I know that? Check your local bookstore and look at the size of the poetry section. Tiny, right?  It wouldn’t be if folks bought a lot of books on poetry.

 

Hyde Brothers Bookstore in Ft. Wayne, IN. A cultural icon and maybe the greatest place in town--if you are a reader

That is not to say that some folks don’t read poetry, like yours truly. But most don’t—and with some good reason. They remember their poetry lessons at school, meter, symbolism, rhyme pattern (or not), etc. Boring—And I won’t argue with you. As a result, most of us wouldn’t know a sonnet from a seagull.

But we are going to look at poetry a bit differently in our discussion. I think you may find it interesting, and maybe even intriguing enough to read some poems yourself. Let’s begin.

Confession: I am a frustrated would-be poet. I have not always been an impassioned poet, or defender of poetry. But I have always had an interest. The first poem I ever penned was in Mrs. Young’s 4^th grade class. I can quote it:

The okapi is a giraffe like animal

And I think it is a mammal.

Although I’m not quite sure,

I think it will endure.

(You won’t see it in any anthologies it is fair to say!)

The inspiration for this bit of doggerel was another poem that fascinated me:

Eletelephony

Laura Elizabeth Richards (pictured at right)

Once there was an elephant,       

Who tried to use the telephant—

No! No! I mean an elephone

Who tried to use the telephone—

(Dear me! I am not certain quite

That even now I’ve got it right.)

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk

Entangled in the telephunk;

The more he tried to get it free,

The louder buzzed the telephee—

(I fear I’d better drop the song

Of elephop and telephong!)

Robert Frost it wasn’t, but I thought it was great--at least in 4th grade it did. (OK. . . Still do.)

There was a big gap between this an my next effort, which came in high school. I won’t print it—it is too long and not much better than my “okapi” effort. But it did trigger my desire to write more.

And I did. Lots more. Which leads me to the following story.

When I was “kind of” a student at Wisconsin State University-Whitewater I earned spending money by writing term papers for others. For $25 bucks I’d do your paper and promise you one of two grades: an A or an F. Anything else you could get your money back. In the only semester I kept count I wrote 23 papers with 19 A’s and 4 B’s. Even with my guarantee no one asked for a refund on the B’s. Let's face it, when you have to hire your writing out a B is worth the $25.

 

The Okapi poet (left) and the poet who wrote papers (below)    
          

    


During this time I was also writing poems. I cranked them out one after another;but I had no idea what to do with them. Then I got a phone call from my favorite professor of all, English Literature Phd. Elsie Adams. She had been encouraging my writing without really seeing it except for my test essays. She just thought it was a good thing that I was interested in doing something.

She was pretty direct in the call. She said, (as closely as I can recall), “Wray, my best friend _____ ______ is making a fool of herself showing a paper all over the department that she says is the best she has ever received—and I know full well that you wrote it.” It was a paper in which, rather than follow the parameters for the assignment, (Analyze a section of Edmund Spenser’s The Faery Queen) I had instead re-written a canto and set it in the (then) present day.

Dr. Adams then told me she had seen other of my papers and told me I would either have to stop or she would rat me out—not her exact words—but the gist of her threat is accurate.

To ease the pain, she then offered to set up an appointment with her husband, a published poet, to have him look at my work and give me advice. I was thrilled.

On the appointed day I almost ran to his office, carrying my “collected” works; a folder about one-half to three-quarters of an inch thick. George was brief and to the point. “I’ll look at them and call you when I’ve finished,” and with that I was dismissed.

I was on pins and needles for the entirety (and eternity) of the two months before I heard from him. Again I raced to his office.

When I arrived he handed my folder back, almost empty, and said, “These need work. The others were garbage and I threw them out.” I was too stunned to speak—closer to tears than anything else—I left in a daze.

There were about ten or so poems left in the folder; some with comments and some without. The others were simply gone. Best of all, I hadn’t had the good sense to make copies—no computers to save things in those days.

I looked at the remaining poems. Not much to look at. Then I set about seeing what could be done with them. And we will leave the story here and wait for the next post to see what happens.