My favorite poets in childhood were Edgar A. Guest and Helen Steiner Rice.
(while you groan and make "icky stinky" noises, I'll get a refill on my coffee.)
Got it out of your system now? Great, thanks! I get that neither of these good people's works are (or were) respected by "real poets". I understand that "doggerel" is a pejorative to many. And I chuckled at the witty Dorothy Parker's couplet:
"I'd rather fail my Wassermann test
Than read a poem by Edgar A. Guest."
But you know what? When I was in high school, I had a part-time job stocking Ambassador and Hallmark greeting cards at the local Safeway grocery store. I really loved that job! It didn't pay much, but it made me feel SOOO important. I had complete and total control over the entire greeting card and scented candle aisle, and many was the happy hour I spent reading the cards while test-sniffing the candles (Vanilla Bean was, and remains, my all-time favorite).
Anyway, Helen Steiner Rice's doggerel was wildly popular on greeting cards. And rightly so! They rhymed, they were inspirational, they were sentimental, and ... er ... they rhymed! For example:
“Peace on earth will come to stay,
When we live Christmas every day.”
and
“When you ask God for a gift,
Be thankful if he sends,
Not diamonds, pearls or riches,
but the love of real true friends.”
And even though it was the '70's and "free verse" had recently been proclaimed the be-all and end-all of poetry in my high school English classes, I loved the utter simplicity of those rhymes - and the ease of memorizing them wasn't something to be sneezed at either!
As for Mr. Guest, I'd long been a fan his poetry, primarily because my grandfather, who I adored, had a couple of volumes of his books on his shelf which I read avidly whenever I was permitted to visit his office. Here's one of my favorites:
A Book
“Now” - said a good book unto me -
“Open my pages and you shall see
Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine,
Gold and silver in every line,
And you may claim them if you but will
Open my pages and take your fill.
Edgar A. Guest
Now those are just wonderful poems, aren't they? How could anyone not love those poems?
Well, okay ... I guess there are a lot of people who DON'T love those poems! But I am unashamed (even though perhaps I should be!) to proclaim that
I would much rather fail MY Wasserman test
Than NEVER to have read any poetry
by the great Edgar A. Guest!
(Take that, Dorothy!)