"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Thursday, December 20, 2012

William Baer - Writer of Faith


Twenty Contemporary Writers of Faith: William Baer
http://www.civitate.org/2012/07/twenty-contemporary-writers-of-faith-william-baer/

by Micah Mattix
July 17, 2012

I was going to begin this series with Amit Majmudar, who writes from outside the Christian tradition but whose work, to borrow Flannery O’Connor’s phrase, is “Christ-haunted.” Instead I’ve decided to begin with the Catholic poet William Baer. I may get back to Majmudar (and other writers whose faith commitments are a bit nebulous) in a twenty-first post.
 
Born in 1948, William Baer studied at Rutgers and New York University before completing a Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina under the poet James Dickey. He was the inaugural editor of The Formalist (1990-2004) and is the author of five volumes of poems, a number of works of film criticism, various collections of interviews with other poets and several plays. He lives in Evansville with his wife and two children and is currently the Melvin M. Peterson Endowed Chair at the University of Evansville.
 
His first book of poems, The Unfortunates (1997), won the T.S Eliot Prize in Poetry. In this volume, Baer eschews the fragmented lyric, which was coming into its own at the time (and is still too popular, as Marjorie Perloff rightly complains). Instead he offers tragic portraits in straightforward narrative of the broken lives of “everyday” individuals, from a local prosecutor who no longer believes in justice and a young man tempted by cults to a woman dying in a hospital and an unhappy librarian.
 
In “Breaking and Entering,” for example, a common criminal reflects on the idea of home in the middle of a burglary:
When he was done, he sat in their living room:
as always, he’d made certain they’d be away,
and checked for dogs, alarms, and nosy neighbors,
then glass-cut through a window in the back—
ready with the knife he’d never used
(but would)—and quickly packed her gold and stones,
their small antiques, and the “knock-out” Tiffany lamp—
which these dull bastards certainly didn’t deserve.
But he liked their quiet house, just as he’d liked
his parents’ best when they were sound asleep,
no nagging, fighting, or banging him about.
Some “sneaks” enjoy the breaking in—“like sex”
they say—while others crave the risks, or just the goods,
but he liked sitting in their living rooms,
until, at last, he’d slit their couches open, and leave.
Too bad. He liked it here; it felt like home.
Baer offers no hope of redemption in these poems as if to force us to come to terms with the deeply-rooted problem of human brokenness–something we Americans, with our self-help books and day-time talk shows, want solved before the next chapter or commercial. At the same time, small paradoxes, like the criminal breaking into a home in order to “steal” a sense of home–a sense, ironically enough, that is marked by the absence (or silence) of others–show us that to make peace with our brokenness is to be a divided or irrational self.
 
In other volumes, Baer addresses redemption head on. Psalter (2011), for example, is a wonderful book of devotional poems on selected books and characters from the Old and New Testaments. In “Genesis,” the opening poem of the volume, Baer retells God’s miraculous creation of “a corporeal universe”:
with stars, and with a whirling spot of blue,
with countless creatures of the day and the night,
in which there was, beneath the skies above,
a creature, in God’s image, yet not alone,
a male, a female, with understanding and love,
with a deathless soul, with free will of its own.
Man-made creation, on the other hand, which attempts to replace rather than imitate God’s original creative act and divine order ends in chaos. “What becomes of a scheming innovator,” Baer writes,
who falsely sacrifices before our feasts,
who countermands the will of his creator
and claims that all are holy, and all are priests?
The answer: “The earth will open, and those who still rebel / will tumble into the flaming pits of hell.”
 
Yet, there are those who do not “still rebel.” In “Adam,” for example, after the father recognizes the full force of his rebellion against God, he does not despair, but rather turns to God in faith:
He’d seen this thing before, of course, but never like this.
After Eden, he’d found a swan lying motionless and silent,
forever rotting, irretrievable, and gone.
But now, it’s his boy, the brother of Cain, the shepherd son,
the kind and faithful friend of He-Who-Is,
lying quiet and slain: finished, futureless, at the end of his end.
Once, Adam had named the names, and named his own two sons,
and named this curse, which mullifies and terminates, as: “death.”
But he who’d known the awesome power of God looked to the skies,
knowing, without a doubt, though nothing was said,
his God both could and would undo the dead.
This poem’s simple diction can hide a nuanced contrast. Adam had indeed “named the names” and “his own two sons.” In this, he imitated God. Naming is a creative act–one that in human usage identifies being (whereas with God it creates being). Adam’s silence in the creation story at the Tree of Good and Evil, however, and his subsequent transgressive act, resulted in death. The word, which he is forced to coin because of his one original act, fills his mouth and cuts his wind–it “mullifies and terminates.” In this silence (“nothing was said”), however, Adam turns to God, resubmitting himself and his language to Him. The poem, in turn, fittingly ends in metaphor: God, Adam knows, will “undo the dead.”
 
One criticism of Baer’s work is that it lacks formal depth or metaphorical richness. While Baer’s focus narrative can sometimes divert his attention from formal possibilities, like Frost, Baer’s seeming simplicity can be deceptive. His work is both accessible and complex, immediately pleasurable and a great tool for private and public devotion.
 
 
 
Resources:
 
Books of Poetry by William Baer:
 
The Unfortunates (1997)
 
Borges and Other Sonnets (2003)
 
“Bocage” and Other Sonnets (2008)
 
Psalter (2011)
 
 
 
 
 
 

William Baer - Snowflake



 
 


Snowflake
 
Timing’s everything. The vapor rises
 
high in the sky, tossing to and fro,
 
then freezes, suddenly, and crystalizes
 
into a perfect flake of miraculous snow.
 
For countless miles, drifting east above
 
the world, whirling about in a swirling free-
 
for-all, appearing aimless, just like love,
 
but sensing, seeking out, its destiny.
 
Falling to where the two young skaters stand,
 
hand in hand, then flips and dips and whips
 
itself about to ever-so-gently land,
 
a miracle, across her unkissed lips:
 
as he blocks the wind raging from the south,
 
leaning forward to kiss her lovely mouth.
 
 
- William Baer
 
 
 

 
 
 
BIOGRAPHY
 
William Baer was born in Geneva, New York in 1948. As a writer, editor, translator and professor, Baer has authored and edited fifteen books, among them The Unfortunates, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1997, and Bocage and Other Sonnets, recipient of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. Baer is the founding editor of The Formalist, a literary journal dedicated to Formalist poetry, and serves as a contributing editor of Measure. He is a former poetry editor and film critic of Crisis Magazine. Baer teaches creative writing, cinema and world cultures at the University of Evansville, in Evansville, Indiana, where he lives with his wife and children.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Friday, December 14, 2012

And The World Cries For Ones Now Lost






Heal the World Lyrics - Michael Jackson





Heal the World by Michael Jackson



"Heal The World"


There's A Place In
Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could
Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need
To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow

There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

If You Want To Know Why
There's A Love That
Cannot Lie
Love Is Strong
It Only Cares For
Joyful Giving
If We Try
We Shall See
In This Bliss
We Cannot Feel
Fear Or Dread
We Stop Existing And
Start Living

Then It Feels That Always
Love's Enough For
Us Growing
So Make A Better World
Make A Better World...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

And The Dream We Were
Conceived In
Will Reveal A Joyful Face
And The World We
Once Believed In
Will Shine Again In Grace
Then Why Do We Keep
Strangling Life
Wound This Earth
Crucify Its Soul
Though It's Plain To See
This World Is Heavenly
Be God's Glow

We Could Fly So High
Let Our Spirits Never Die
In My Heart
I Feel You Are All
My Brothers
Create A World With
No Fear
Together We'll Cry
Happy Tears
See The Nations Turn
Their Swords
Into Plowshares

We Could Really Get There
If You Cared Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
To Make A Better Place...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me

Heal the world we live in, save it for our children
Heal the world we live in, save it for our children
Heal the world we live in, save it for our children
Heal the world we live in, save it for our children 




Excerpts From "An Unexpected Journey" by J.R.R. Tolkien

 
"As children's fantasy literature goes this is a fun read full of
creaturely songs, dark tales and whimsical riddles. It is truly
a tale for the ages...." - R
 
 
 
 
"It seems every 20 years or so I must re-read JRR Tolkien. In preparation for Peter Jackson's newest Tolkien film coming out in December 2012 I begin my third reading with great pleasure and delight. Let me share my journey with you in a revisioning of "All Things Hobbity" with care, of course, not to spoil the adventure!" - R
 
*
 
"Let's start by choosing a book with pictures and maps.
Without maps you will get lost of course..." - R
 
 
A Bookstore Display
  
 
A Sighting of Oxford's Resident Hobbit
  

The Author J.R.R. Tolkien

  "Chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party. 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit....' and thus began J.R.R. Tolkien's very first line on a blank page when grading papers at Oxford and the legedarium to come. Of Arda and Middle-Earth filled with tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world of faeries and elves, craven dwarves (using the ancient spelling for an ancient race), goblins, and greedy dragons, well before the dawn of man.
 
"Where Ea sang worlds into existence and the Ainur entered Arda following the creation events in the Ainulindalë. Where time was measured in Valian Years and by hero's accounts now lost in the deep delves of doom and enchantment.
 
"Yes, dear ol' Bilbo began it all. And it isss (as Gollum would say) by his Hobbit tale we are delivered the rich fantasy worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien. Writer of children's poems by night and Oxford professor by day. Telling his children of phenomenal bravery amid the lost lores beyond the Shire. Who carefully listened to their studied father questioning him in like studious fashion whether blue-shrouded dwarfs wore silver or gold bracelets and diamond rings with hood or cloak. Hail!" - R
 
 
 
 
 
"Now if you wish to know how the game of golf was begun, or what drawves love most in this world, or even how Bilbo became a bugler (tho' he didn't know it himself at the time of his appointment - or how good he would be at it) then chapter 1 is the best place to begin!" - J
 
*
 
The sign on the door read, "Bugler wants a good job, plenty of excitement,
and reasonable reward." - J
 
*
 
“There’s a lot more in him than you guess. And a great deal more than
he has any idea of himself,” spoke Gandalf to his inquisitors. - J
 
 
 
 
"And do not think that this little book of adventures is something magical
like the whimsical Harry Potter. No, its holds much better English prose
than you will find in your typical Hogwart's classic." - R
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 "From Book I, The Hobbit, spawned the lore of Middle-Earth's impossibly complex and rich traditions beginning with this line... 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'
 
"And thus began JRR Tolkien's very first line on a blank page when grading papers at Oxford and of the legedarium to come. Of Arda and Middle-Earth filled with tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world of faeries and elves, craven dwarves and goblins, and greedy dragons, before the dawn of man." - R
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"Won't you come in says the spider to the fly...."
 
*
 
"What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up,up it goes, And yet never grows?"
 
*
 
"There was then a hissing and cursing almost at Bilbo's heels at first, then it stopped.
All at once there came a blood-curdling shriek, filled with hatred and despair....
"Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!" - J
 
 
 
 
"Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with foreboding trees. The kind that whispered when all was quiet and you daren't go in and everything seemed gloomy. On some hills were old castles with an evil look that held the nights comfortless and chill. Where the echoes were uncanny and the silence disliked being broken except by the wail of the wind and crack of stone." - J
 
*
 
"The land about them grew bleak and barren, though once green and fair. There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ancient forests long vanished. They had left Esgaroth and were come to the lands of Desolation, and they were come at the waning of the year." - J
 
 
Lake City of Esgaroth
 
 
 
 
 
"... Bilbo was trembling with fear as he crept noiselessly down, down, down into the gloom of darkness taking more than a hobbit's care to make no sound in the lingering echoes. Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages....
 
"...The heat from the steam and foul smell increased as he crept steadily along. He loosened his elf-dagger in its sheath, tightened his belt, and pressed on against his welling fears. There were dark things that dwelt down here, that had dwelt there for many ages, and he dare not make any careless sound...." - J
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"The Land that was... of Middle-Earth in the time of orcs and men." - R
 
 
 
 
"... Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least. All was dead around and about and no living thing had lived there for many years. But there was no turning back from this adventure as he pressed on with the dwarves in their doomed hopes for revenge and gilded honor." - J (in an excerpt from the Lonely Mountain)
 
 
 
 
 
"Never allow a Wizard to talk you into anything like adventures.
Only the worst sort of things can happen from them. Things like
troubles and cares and woes. But wizards are clever sorts of beings.
Cleverer than you." - R
 
 
 
 
 
"Dwarves can be quite unpleasant company if you allow them in.
Always hungry, never satisfied, grumpy as they are gloomy." - R
 
 
 
The steeps of Lonely Mountain

Thus ends the story of Bilbo Baggins Esquire, of Bag-End, Underhill, Hobbiton of the Shire, which he later entitled "There and Back Again." An adventure that had begun quite unexpectedly and returned him from the world again as quite another person. Few of the Shire believed his tales. And many doubted that he was who he claimed to be. In fact, many shook their heads and said, "Poor Old Baggins!" To which Bilbo cared not one whit and took to writing poetry and having the honour of hosting those dwarves, elves, wizards and other such folk as ever passed his way. He had become the stuff of legends and songs remembered by those who truly knew the courage and resourcefulness of a hobbit. The End." - J/R
 
 
 
 
 
 
*
 
 
S P O I L E R
 
 
*
 
 
Film Production Tidbits for Parts I, II, III
November 2012
 
"The Hobbit will be a trilogy centered around innocence and growing up respective to the elements within the story itself (though many suppose it refers to Britain's perception of itself related to Germany's arising in WW1, this would be untrue. And let's not pretend that Britain was ever that innocent in her relations with other nations whom suffered underneath her English rule.)" - R
 
*
 
"The Film Series will be as follows: Part (I) An Unexpected Journey-2012, (II) The Desolation of Smaug-2013, (III) There and Back Again-2014. As of November 2012, Part I is done; Part II is in post-production; and, Part III will soon begin." -R
 
*
 
"I'm much in agreement that the 3rd part of the Trilogy MUST be related to Bilbo and not to the other events such as the battle of the five armies (per the book nor its appendices). The same goes with the first part whose title excludes "Riddles in the Dark" as straying from its center. It must be Bilbo always." - R
 
*
 
"MGM, New-Line, and Warner Bros. do not have rights to The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and sadly, cannot reference any of the lore within those literary pieces. Which leaves at least a century's worth of filming for later on I would imagine. Those that can't wait may read Tolkien's books now. They are everywhere present and plentyful. For books are ever the better compliment to any film with few exceptions." - R
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, December 3, 2012

24 Advent Poems for Christmas

 
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived,
reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. - Anon


*Many thanks to Journey with Jesus for collecting these poems -


Daily Readings for the Month of December
from Dec 1 to Christmas Day and Beyond
 
 
Dec 1 - Catherine Alder, Advent Hands
 
Dec 2 - Daniel Berrigan, Advent Credo
 
Dec 3 - John Betjeman, Christmas
 
Dec 4 - Sr. M. Charlita, I.H.M., Advent Antiphons
 
Dec 5 - G.K. Chesterton, The House of Christmas
 
Dec 6 - Sr. M. Chrysostom, The Stable
 
Dec7 - Pamela Cranston, ADVENT (On a Theme by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Dec 8 - Pamela Cranston, God's Annunciation

Dec 9 - Pamela Cranston, Poem for Christ the King

Dec 10 - John Donne, Annunciation

Dec 11 - John Donne, Nativity

Dec 12 - St. Ephraim of Syria (Ephrem of Edessa), From God Christ's Deity Came Forth

Dec 13 - U.A. Fanthorpe, BC:AD

Dec 14 - Christopher Harvey, The Nativity

Dec 15 - Denise Levertov, On the Mystery of the Incarnation

Dec 16 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells

Dec 17 - Edwin Muir, The Annunciation

Dec 18 - Prudentius, Of the Father's Love Begotten

Dec 19 - David A. Redding, Adult Advent Announcement

Dec 20 - Brad Reynolds, Gaudete  (*gaudete - a medieval hymn or carol of "rejoicing")

Dec 21 - Rainer Maria Rilke, Annunciation to Mary

Dec 22 - Luci Shaw, Virgin

Dec 23 - Alfred Lord Tennyson, A New Year's Poem

Dec 24 - Brian Wren, Good is the Flesh

Dec 25 - Matthew 1.18-2.7 (Jesus' Birth), Luke 2 (Jesus' Birth)

Dec 26 - Mark 1 (Jesus' Ministry Begins)

Dec 27 - John 1 (Christ's Incarnation & Calling)

Dec 28 - John 2-3 (Jesus' First Miracle and Message)

Dec 29 - Romans 1 (Paul's Letter to the churches of Asia Minor)

Dec 30 - Readings in Psalms (5 Psalms in 30 Days covers all the Psalms)

Dec 31 - Readings in Proverbs (a chapter a day for a month)

Jan 1 - Chose a Bible Reading Plan (there are several; print-out the chronological as a guide).
            Understanding the OT will help when reading the NT. And understanding the NT will
            help when reading the OT. Same God, same faith, but now re-read through Jesus.

Jan 2 - Begin attending several churches to discover their traditions, customs and understanding
            of Jesus in relation to the living Christian faith. Begin reading Relevancy22 as a starting
            point for understanding the theological teachings of Christianity, its doctrines & dogmas.

Jan 3 - Begin Walk Thru the Bible's 5 Year Study (yes, it's old timey but it will bring the Bible
            alive through the twangy Texas accent of a beloved pastor now passed away in a common-
            sense approach to people and life's many twists and turns. The Bible is not meant to be
            hard to understand. This little audio study will tell of God's daily presence and love).

Jan 4 - Become acquainted with the Basic Theological Readings of the Bible. Five methods are
            summarily examined comprehensively - each method shows how to read the Bible from
            a different viewpoint that will help give an interpretive structure to Bible reading.

Jan 5 - St. John's Video Timelines Project - An Expansive Review of the Bible, church history
           and church doctrine at the reader's pace while continuing to read through Relevancy22.
           In a way, Relevancy22 is the contemporary twin to the St. John's Timelines Project.
           Where one examines the past, the other examines the directions of the church today.

 

 
 
For more on Advent and its meaning go to -
 
 
 
 
 
 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Sam Walter Foss - Minor Poet with a Major Message



Sam Walter Foss is a late 19th century poet with a major Christian message for the 21st century. Certainly part of it is optimism. But self-deprecating humor is also part of his optimistic bent. Many of his poems are straight-forward and easily read but taken as a collection they bear a contemporary message with an overall spirit of hardiness against dark times. For Sam, he observed the affects of the Civil War 30 years hence, and later, the loss of his son to WW1. He is the everyman poet for the common man or woman. - res
 
 
 
                   


 
Amazon Listings
 
 
 
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
 
 
Sam Walter Foss:
Minor Poet with a Major Message

Platform talk by John Hoad, Leader Emeritus
of the Ethical Society of St. Louis
 
Delivered on July 11, 1999

Let me introduce you to a very special person -- a very special poet. Let me introduce you to Sam Walter Foss. He was born June 19, 1858, and he died February 26, 1911, at age 52. Most of his collections of verse were published in the 1890's. So Foss was in a situation similar to ours, in the transition from one century to another. We think of our century as a time of massive wars and of technological creation. We face the new century hoping we can do better next time around.
 
But the nineteenth century was also a time of wars around the globe and especially of the American Civil War, which took the lives of tens of thousands of American men. One of Foss's books was entitled Songs of war and Peace, published in 1899. However, he too urged the theme of optimism. The last newspaper column he wrote, while in hospital awaiting an operation that would fail to save his life, was on "Optimism." A boisterous faith in humanity characterized his poetry, even though he had a sharp eye for human foibles and failings.
 
The first Foss poem I met was a poem read at the memorial of Clayton Chism, who was a member here at the Ethical Society. It was his favorite and is the poem by Foss most frequently included in anthologies of poetry. You can find it in One Hundred and One Famous Poems, edited by Roy Cook. It is called, "The House by the Side of the Road." This is how it goes:

 
THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

He was a friend to man, and he lived
In a house by the side of the road -- Homer

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran --
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

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,
Or hurl the cynic's ban --
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan --
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road --
It's here the race of men go by.
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish -- so am I;
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.


Why do I speak of Foss as a minor poet? Judging poetry can be very subjective, but there is clear evidence that the literary experts are not taken with Foss. I searched my own collection of reference works. There was no "Foss" in:

  • Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
  • Cambridge Biographical Dictionary
  • Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia
  • Foerster's American Poetry and Prose
  • Standard Book of British and American Verse
  • Oxford Book of American Verse
  • Louis Untermeyer doesn't include him in Modern American Poetry
  • and he's definitely not in the Mentor Book of Major American Poets

With the help of a librarian, Mary Johnson (a friend of mine in Alton), I did find him in two places: American Authors 1600-1900 rather patronizingly calls him a "verse writer," but the Dictionary of American Biography honors him as "poet, journalist, humorist, and librarian."
 
Foss was a country boy from New Hampshire, worked on his father's farm, went to school in the winter, lost his mother at age four, graduated from Brown University in 1882, then got into writing as publisher, editor, and journalist. He was the librarian of the Somerville Public Library in Massachusetts from 1898 till his death in 1911. He married a minister's daughter and they had a daughter and a son. The son died in World Was I on the fields of France. He attended College Avenue Methodist Church in Somerville, Massachusetts, which is a church still in existence and active.
 
Methodist though he was, he could have been versifying Ethical Culture philosophy. This is Foss's idea of "The True Bible."
 

THE TRUE BIBLE

What is the world's true Bible -- ‘tis the highest thought of man,
The thought distilled through ages since the dawn of thought began.
And each age adds a word thereto, some psalm or promise sweet --
And the canon is unfinished and forever incomplete.
O'er the chapters that are written, long and lovingly we pore --
But the best is yet unwritten, for we grow from more to more.

Let us heed the voice within us and its messages rehearse;
Let us build the growing Bible -- for we too must write a verse.
What is the purport of the scheme toward which all time is gone?
What is the great aeonian goal? The joy of going on.

And are there any souls so strong, such feet with swiftness shod,
That they shall reach it, reach some bourne, the ultimate of god?
There is no bourne, no ultimate. The very farthest star
But rims a sea of other stars that stretches just as far.
There's no beginning and no end: As in the ages gone,
The greatest joy of joys shall be -- the joy of going on.


He liked to poke fun at sanctimonious ritual, and here is one of his humorous verses, called "An Informal Prayer," or "The Prayer of Cyrus Brown." Throughout the poem he quotes from different religious characters.



AN INFORMAL PRAYER -- THE PRAYER OF CYRUS BROWN

"The proper way for a man to pray"
said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
"and the only proper attitude
is down upon his knees."

"Nay, I should say the way to pray,"
said Reverend Dr. Wise
"is standing straight with outstrecthed arms
and rapt and upturned eyes."

"Oh, no, no, no." said Elder Snow
"Such posture is too proud
A man should pray with eyes fast closed
and head contritely bowed."

"It seems to me his hands should be
astutely clasped in front.
With both thumbs a pointing toward the ground."
Said Reverend Hunt.

"Las' year I fell in Hodgkins well
head first," said Cyrus Brown,
"With both my heels a-stikin' up,
my head a-p'inting down,
An' I made a prayer right there an' then;
Best prayer I ever said;
The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,
A-standin on my head."
 

And Foss noted the anger that religious debate can bring out. This is a poem called "Odium Theologicum," which is a familiar word for the hatred produced by theology.


ODIUM THEOLOGICUM

I


They met and they talked where the crossroads meet,
Four men from the four winds come,
And they talked of the horse, for they loved the theme,
And never a man was dumb.
The man from the North loved the strength of the horse,
And the man from the East his pace,
And the man from the South loved the speed of the horse,
And the man from the West his grace.

So these four men from the four winds come,
Each paused a space in his course
And smiled in the face of his fellow man
And lovingly talked of the horse.
Then each man parted and went his way
As their different courses ran;
And each man journeyed with peace in his heart
And loving his fellow man.

II

They met the next year where the crossroads meet,
Four men from the four winds come:
And it chanced as they met that they talked of God,
And never a man was dumb.
One imagined God in the shape of a man.
A spirit did one insist.
One said that nature itself was God.
One said that he didn't exist.

They lashed each other with tongues that stung,
That smote as with a rod;
Each glared in the face of his fellow man,
And wrathfully talked of God.
Then each man parted and went his way,
As their different courses ran;
And each man journeyed with wrath in his heart,
And hating his fellow man.
 
The title of his last book of poems, published in 1907, and republished in 1911, with eight additional poems, expresses what Foss was all about. He called it, Songs of the Average Man. (Remember he's speaking long before the feminist revolution, so when he says "man," he does intend "man and woman." And also, as poets know, "man" is a much easier word to rhyme with than "human".) But for Foss an "average man" was an extraordinary person, for each of us, in his view, is special.
 
Here is his poem, "The Man From The Crowd."
 

THE MAN FROM THE CROWD

Men seem as alike as the leaves on the trees,
As alike as the bees in a swarming of bees;
And we look at the millions that make up the state
All equally little and equally great,
And the pride of our courage is cowed.
Then Fate calls for a man who is larger than men --
There's a surge in the crowd -- there's a movement -- and then
There arises a man that is larger than men --
And the man comes up from the crowd.

The chasers of trifles run hither and yon,
And the little small days of small things go on,
And the world seems no better at sunset than dawn,
And the race still increases its plentiful spawn.
And the voice of our wailing is loud.
Then the Great Deed calls out for the Great Men to come,
And the Crowd, unbelieving, sits sullen and dumb --
But the Great Deed is done, for the Great Man is come --
Aye, the man comes up from the crowd.

There's a dead hum of voices, all say the same thing,
And our forefathers' songs are the songs that we sing,
And the deeds by our fathers and grandfathers done
Are done by the son of the son of the son,
And our heads in contrition are bowed.
Lo, a call for a man who shall make all things new
Goes down through the throng! See! he rises in view!
Make room for the men who shall make all things new! --
For the man who comes up from the crowd.

And where is the man who comes up from the throng
Who does the new deed and who sings the new song,
And makes the old world as a world that is new?
And who is the man? It is you! It is you!
And our praise is exultant and proud.
We are waiting for you there -- for you are the man!
Come up from the jostle as soon as you can;
Come up from the crowd there, for you are the man --
The man who comes up from the crowd.
 

From some lines in that poem, we see that Foss didn't like the dead hand of the past to hold the present to ransom. The other most quoted poem by Foss, after "The House by the Side of the Road," is a humorous satire that bears on that theme of letting precedent overrule the present. (It is a poem that has recently seen revival among motivational speakers.)
 
It's called "The Calf-Path" and this is how it goes.
 


THE CALF-PATH

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then two hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.

And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made;
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ‘twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed -- do not laugh --
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah! many things this tale might teach --
But I am not ordained to preach.
 

Foss's works are unfortunately all out of print. But somebody put me on to Barnes and Noble website on the Internet. You pick "out of print" and you bring up Sam Walter Foss. Through that source I have gradually collected all his five volumes of poems, all neatly bound and from the 1890's and this last one from the first decade of this century.
 
I could keep you here an hour or two sharing Foss's delightful characterizations and caricatures of people. He tells of the young woman who discoursed endlessly and in scholarly fashion about philosophers while doing crochet. Her lover can't get a word in and eventually goes out and shoots himself. The poem ends: "Unshocked / She talked and talked and talked and talked."
 
He pictures an old blind man who fiddles and sings, and people form a ring around him and there is "laughter choked with teardrops" for the listeners know that "every life's a blind man's tune that's played on broken strings."
 
He tells of a little girl talking with his father and she says, "Daddy, did God make me?"
 
"Yes, of course," Daddy says, "God made you."
 
And then she looks up at her rather plain haggard old father and says, "And Daddy, did God make you?"
 
"Oh yes," says the father, "God made everybody."
 
So then the little girl looks in the mirror and sees how pretty she looks and she looks up at rather plain Daddy and says, "Daddy, I think God is improving at his trade."
 
He was hard on his own profession of journalism for its muck-raking: "Run we through our printing press / Myriad miles of nastiness," he wrote in a poem called, "The New Journalism." But in the poem "The Press," he saw the importance of the newspaper that (as he put it) "writes our history while we are waiting."
 
 
Conclusion
 
I'll close with two poems. One, called "The Coming Century," shows Foss's remarkable imagination, as he sees us drawing energy from the core of the earth (where volcanoes get theirs) and power from the wind (we've done a bit of that), building with solidified air (I'm not sure we know how to do that), and flying back and forth over the Atlantic. Remember as you hear this, that he was writing within a few years of the Wright Brothers' first lift-off in flight, when many other distinguished people were saying that there was no future in air travel. He also had a faith in psychic energy, that we haven't been able to tap yet.

This is how "The Coming Century" goes:
 
THE COMING CENTURY

If the century gone, as the wise ones attest,
Exceeds all the centuries before it,
Then the century coming will better its best
And tower immeasurably o'er it.
And, if miracles now are coming to pass
Right here in your and my time,
Why, miracles then will be thicker than grass
And as common as flies are in fly time.

We will send down our pipes to the Earth's burning core
Where the smithy of Vulcan is quaking,
And the fires that make the volcanoes outpour
We will use for our johnny-cake baking.
And then we will bridle and harness the tide
And make the pulse beat of the ocean
Provide the propulsion when Baby shall ride
And keep his small carriage in motion.

We will hitch the East wind to the crank of our churn
And make us a butter to "brag on";
By projecting a psychical impulse we'll turn
The wheels of a furniture wagon.
We'll make yellow squashes from nice yellow dirt
Scooped up from our pastures and beaches;
On Sahara some chemical compound we'll squirt,
And the sand will evolve into peaches.

And a hundred strong men by concentring their will
Ride straight to one point, like a plummet,
Will turn upside down a respectable hill
And spin it around on its summit.
Our buildings we'll build of solidified air
'Way up from the sill to the skylight,
With trimmings of brownstone surpassingly fair
Of solidified air of the twilight.

We will fly through the air from New York to the Rhine,
Through Germany, Lower and Upper,
Stop off, if we like, in Geneva to dine
And come back to New York for our supper.
If we don't wish to fly we will throw our own thought,
Yes, each throw his thought to his sweetheart,
By a kind of a mental telepathy shot,
A method by which heart can meet heart.

We shall learn of the beings who people the stars
And add to the cosmical mirth, then,
By telling new jokes to the people of Mars
And hear then laugh back on the earth, then.
Ah, many trans-cosmic debates shall be whirled,
And long be the parleys between us;
One end of the dialogues fixed in this world,
And the other located in Venus.

Finally, his poem, "The Trumpets." Foss went into hospital after grappling with some indeterminate illness for two years in the Christmas of 1910, where he wrote his article on "Optimism" and where he wrote his final poem, just before the operation. The operation did not save him and he died on February 26, 1911. So this is his swan song.
 
I have shared Foss with you because, first off, I found him so fascinating myself; secondly I was so concerned that this poet who has so much to say has been so neglected and none of his work reprinted, other than one or two poems in anthologies; and because I believe that the optimism that he shared is an optimism needed during this transition for us. Lionel Tiger, in his book, Optimism, The Biology of Hope, tells us that optimism is a survival mechanism of the human race. You have to have faith -- faith in your future -- personally and nationally.
 
And so I give you Foss and his final poem, "The Trumpets."
 
THE TRUMPETS

[This was Mr. Foss's last poem, and was written just before Christmas, 1910, when he thought he might have to submit to an operation. The end came February 26, 1911.]
The trumpets were calling me over the hill,
And I was a boy and knew nothing of men;
But they filled all the vale with their clangorous trill,
And flooded the gloom of the glen.

"The trumpets," I cried, "Lo, they call from afar,
They are mingled with music of bugle and drum;
The trumpets, the trumpets are calling to war,
The trumpets are calling -- I come."

The trumpets were calling me over the Range,
And I was a youth and was strong for the strife;
And I was full fain for the new and the strange,
And mad for the tumult of life.

And I heard the loud trumpets that blew for the fray,
In the spell of their magic and madness was dumb;
And I said, "I will follow by night and by day,
The trumpets are calling -- I come."

The trumpets were calling and I was a man,
And had faced the stern world and grown strong;
And the trumpets mere calling far off, and I ran
Toward the blare of their mystical song.

And they led me o'er mountains, ‘neath alien skies,
All else but their music was dumb;
And I ran till I fell, and slept but to rise,
Lo, the trumpets are calling -- I come.

The trumpets are calling, I've come to the sea,
But far out in the moon-lighted glow,
I still hear the trumpets, they're calling to me,
The trumpets are calling -- I go.

And lo, a strange boatman is here with his bark,
And he takes me and rows away, silent and dumb;
But my trumpets! my trumpets! they peal through the dark,
The trumpets are calling -- I come.