This is about a special birthday gift I received last week. And it’s also about a book, and a poet, and a humorous reaction to bad criticism.
My son gave me a gift he has been trying to locate for many years. He’d about given up on ever finding one, when he found it online. It was like the commercial–Very old book: $**.**; pleasure given to the recipient: Priceless.
The autographed and inscribed little book, published in Iowa, is:
Echoes From the Woods:
Memories of Early Life in the Backwoods of Ohio
A Poem Memorial
Vol. 1-4
by Albert Clymer
(c)1889
Albert Clymer was my Great-Grandfather. (My grandmother and my mother also liked to write. Is it a genetic affliction?)Aside from a slight yellowing of the pages it’s in almost perfect condition. (Incidentally, my Great-Grandfather was also an inventor and held a patent for a saw-buck.)
Anyway, the critic for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, wrote, “this volume of poems would have been better without its poetry. The author has mistaken rhyme for poetry…” and went on to quote one stanza, removing three of its seven lines to show how it could be improved.
Now, I would have been ready either to cry, murder the critic, or write a scathing response. My Great-Grandfather was made of better stuff, and he must’ve had a great sense of humor. He responded:
Alas! our critic is so short of breath,
Seven rhyming lines quite worry him to death,
Three verses he lops off we see;
Then gasps, “this stanza is not poetry.”
To write a rhyme was our intent–
The poetry’s an incident.
I resolve that in the future I will keep my Great-Grandfather’s humorous attitude toward critics of my writing. So far I’ve not had many, but that could change any day!
