“Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face.  If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.”

– Edgar A. Guest

Today marks the birthday of Edgar A. Guest.  My great-aunt Essie loved his poems; and she often would recite them at appropriate moments during my childhood.   His down-home brand of wisdom, presented in verse provided many a moment of learning for me when I was young — both in his message and in the way the words moved rhythmically and sounded almost musical.  As I went on to study poetry in school, I learned that the poets of my childhood — Edgar A. Guest, Sam Walter Foss, and later Ogden Nash — were not considered particularly great in literary circles.  I really don’t care, because it was their poetry — minus the obscurity of symbols that required abstract thinking — that created in me an appetite for more.

There is something magical about the way poetry falls on the ear.  The use of meter can create a soothing rhythm that makes us feel like we are rocking on a boat in the sea.  It can hurry and gallop and take us riding on horseback into adventure.  It can sigh and sing softly and bring us to tears or draw us upward in joy.  I didn’t learn these things in a college poetry class.  They were taught to me by the less acclaimed poets whose words carried a child’s mind to thoughts within its grasp.  It couldn’t be done, but he did it.  From that I learned that tenacity could overcome an obstacle.

Robert Louis Stevenson took me on wonderful journeys through childhood and changed “I like to swing” to the marvelous, flying,

“How do you like to go up in a swing?

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it’s the pleasantest thing

That ever a child can do.”

When the time came for my own children to ride on the swing as I pushed them, I would recite those long-ago words and feel their excitement once again.  And the words would fly every bit as high as the swing itself…”up in the air I go flying again!  Up in the air, and down.”

Sam Walter Foss taught me something about being human :

“Let me live in a house by the side of the road,

Where the race of men go by;

The men who are good, and the men who are bad,

As good and as bad as I

…I would not sit in the scorner’s seat

Nor hurl the cynic’s ban,

Let me live in a house by the side of the road

And be a friend to man.”

Those words, recited by Essie, certainly became a force that shaped my philosophy of life.  It is sad that we have lost touch with the practice of memorizing and reciting poetry.  In my family, it was one of the ways that traditions were passed from one generation to the next.  There was a shared bond between the adults and the children as the young ones began to recite the familiar words along with their elders.  I invite you today to step back from worrying about whether or not something is good poetry and just enjoy the memories of nursery rhymes and down-home wisdom presented in rhyme.

Happy Birthday, Edgar A. Guest!