Chapter 2
A Poetic Autoethnography
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| My Father Rex Buckley Jensen Circa 1979 |
A land owner/developer and certified general contractor before I was even born, he was responsible for the construction and/or oversight of 57 homes, including the one where I lived for the first seven years of my life and then four additional years in high school. He also built an apartment complex with dozens of units; a project he oversaw and managed for over two decades. Despite his many achievements as a builder, construction work was just a slice of his eclectic career.
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Dr. JJ before he was a Doc—circa 2003 I, myself, spent several part-time years building shelves with my older brothers, although their skills far outshined my own. |
My brothers and I helped Dad with his trampoline and then later his shelving business. The legacy of this latter venture would extend to his sons and grandkids, who continued the tradition of shelf-building in their college years and beyond. One son (Wayne) still builds shelves to this very day as the owner of "JB Shelving" in northern Utah. The "JB" stands for Jensen Brothers, and Wayne is assisted by several of Dad's grandsons and granddaughters in what has become a very successful business over the years and decades since Dad first introduced us to the opportunity.
Click HERE to visit the JB Shelving online website and see Dad's legacy alive and well in the 2020s.
While Dad dabbled—and sometimes immersed himself—in many different avocations over the course of his career, he was first and foremost a middle and high school English teacher, a career that spanned some 20 years when he wasn't anxiously engaged in one of the many other endeavors noted above.
After retiring from teaching, Dad—an eternal optimist—spent many years writing a weekly column entitled "Life is Good," which was published in The San Juan Record—a weekly newspaper based in his hometown of Monticello, Utah. In his 60s and 70s, Dad and his second wife, Marcia, spent many years building a spacious dream home on their own land and mostly with their own two hands.
I know few individuals who are more visionary, ambitious, or hard-working than my father, and I'm grateful for the vision, ambition, work ethic, and communication skills he instilled in me through his remarkable example of personifying these attributes and skills himself.
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| Dad's Christmas present to me in 1989. |
For example, on Christmas day 1989, I unwrapped an especially memorable gift from Dad. It was a 2,300 page single-volume copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Despite the growth and maturation of my own library, I continue to eye certain gems in Dad's collection. Aware of my covetous glances over the years, Dad has already lovingly gifted me a 1912 copy of Longfellow and an 1888 edition of Wordsworth—both of which he purchased in England while serving as a young missionary in the mid-1960s.
A voracious reader, talented writer, and prolific diarist, I also know of few conversationalists more enthusiastic and engaging than Dad. Some of our finest tête-à-têtes have occurred on road trips together. In addition to literature and language, we both have a passionate love affair with the open road and have logged perhaps a hundred thousand miles (or more) together in our lives.
Of all the memories I have of Dad during my childhood years, one of my most cherished directly involves poetry. I was an elementary student at the time (perhaps 4th grade) and had just come home from school at the end of my day. When I arrived home, I found Dad sitting relaxedly on the couch. This was unusual because Dad was a school teacher at the time and almost always got home from work several hours after my own school day had ended.
Then, like a master musician or professional orchestra, Dad began to build into a gradual crescendo as he narrated this classic, nineteenth century, British version of Romeo and Juliet. As he approached the end of PART TWO, he passionately belted out the climactic pre-penultimate stanza...
Originally published in the mid-1920s, 101 Famous Poems went through several editions and publications over the decades. My copy (and presumably Dad's) was a 1958 edition. This placed it after modernism had ended and postmodernism had begun to take its place. Cook was cognizant of contemporary culture and the ways in which the world had changed since the book's original publication in the 1920s—near the beginning of the modernist era.
Aside from rare exceptions in the twentieth century (e.g. Edgar Guest and Robert Frost), poets like Longfellow—enormously popular in his own day—represent a breed of bards that died long ago, perhaps never to rise again in this world. The technology of the twentieth century, and even more prominently in the twenty-first century, has changed poetry and live, stage entertainment in the same way that the Internet has changed broadcast journalism.
Said he:
A great truism states that: the more things change, the more things stay the same. While a great desire for traditional poetry may have diminished over the preceding century-plus, the "great need" for poetry that Cook wrote about in 1958 has not changed, nor will it ever change—as indicated by the bustling popularity and booming sales of a myriad genres of musical lyrics, which do, after all, share a kinship with age-old patterns of rhythm and rhyme (poetry) albeit set to new and creative melodies, harmonies, and percussion beats.
I was only 10 years old!
In the front cover, he inscribed a beautifully hand-written (cursive) note that read:
"To my precious Jordan in hopes that this will be the beginning of a quality library for a "quality" mind. I love and admire you so much.
"I hope you will discover as I have, that some of life's best experiences can be found in great books. Mr. Shakespeare will mean more to you as you grow older, and age gives you the wisdom to appreciate the great truths contained herein.Love,
Dad
Dec 25, 1989
Mesa, Arizona"
While my personal library had already begun to grow at this point in my life, this volume of Shakespeare served as a cornerstone in a collection that would expand to over 500 volumes by the time I had graduated from college. This hefty tome filled with the genius works of the Immortal Bard continues to play a prominent role in my home and office library today, which has now grown to over 1,000 books.
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| My 1912 Longfellow and 1888 Wordsworth Poetical Anthologies |
I have further placed dibs on his leather-bound, 3-volume Shakespeare collection and other antique poetry anthologies—all of which he procured in England as a young missionary. When the day comes that Dad travels on to that "far better land of promise," I intend to add these priceless volumes to my library, which will be a nice, albeit minor, consolation prize in comparison to his much greater opportunity of finally getting to meet Henry, William, and William in person!
I'm not gonna lie... I'm a little jealous knowing he'll likely beat me to those special meet-and-greets and conversations in another realm. Meanwhile, Dad's books bought in Britain more than half-a-century ago will be a fine reminder of my wonderful father—for the rest of my own days in this world.
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| Main section of my home library of over 1,000 books. |
Twice I have accompanied Dad on multi-week cross-country automobile jaunts (in 1991 and 2003). On a more recent trip (in 2010) to the Redwood Forests in Northern California, we took to studying vocabulary words together, and even collaborated on a poem that is included in this collection.
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| Alfred Noyes British Poet 1880-1958 |
I don't remember why he happened to be home early that day, but I'll never forget what happened next. I don't recall the conversation that prefaced Dad's spontaneous decision to break forth into an oral reading performance, but before I knew what was happening, "English teacher dad" had picked up a book of poems and began to memorably "lend to the rhyme of the poet, the beauty of [his] voice" (1) as he animatedly brought to life Alfred Noyes' epic narrative poem, The Highwayman.
Dad started out quiet and low, almost in a whisper...
"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,And the highwayman came riding,Riding, riding,The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door."
Then, like a master musician or professional orchestra, Dad began to build into a gradual crescendo as he narrated this classic, nineteenth century, British version of Romeo and Juliet. As he approached the end of PART TWO, he passionately belted out the climactic pre-penultimate stanza...
"Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden moon; wine-red was his velvet coat,When they shot him down on the highway,Down like a dog on the highway,And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat." (2)
It was enough to put goosebumps on the back of your neck!
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| Like Romeo and Juliet, the unnamed Highwayman and his lover, Bess the Landlord's daughter, meet a grisly end. |
This was followed by the concluding two paragraphs (in italics) which Dad pulled back to once again read quietly and low—the same way he had begun.
It was a masterful and magical performance by someone who obviously appreciated great verse.
I was transfixed!
Poetry was never the same for me afterwards.
One day, while searching through Dad's office library as a boy, I came upon a little volume that would further change my life. It was a simple, nondescript paperback copy of 101 Famous Poems, edited by Roy J. Cook.
For me, this book fully animated the maxim: Don't judge a book by its cover. Despite its insipid and unimpressive outer appearance, I found its inner contents to contain riches that only scripture could eclipse. More than any other poetic anthology, this relatively brief and diminutive collection of popular English and American works captured my young heart, thus fully engaging my love affair with verse.
Years later, as a freshman in college, I received $20 from my paternal grandmother (Dad's mom) for my 22nd birthday. I opted to spend my money at a local university bookstore where I purchased a nicer hardback version—my own copy—of 101 Famous Poems. This more robust and visually attractive copy of Cook's classic anthology, purchased in 2001, has gone with me everywhere I've moved the past 22 years and remains one of my prized earthly possessions. Only the Holy Scriptures sit on a higher pedestal in my library—and my estimation.
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| My personal copy of 101 Famous Poems |
Cook further recognized that the collective passion for classical poetry that had marked the Romantic Period and Victorian Age had subsided in the modern age of industry and technology, and that educational drifts toward increasing secularization had begun to stymie the use of traditional didactic poetry in public schools.
Facing increased pressure and competition from all sides, poetry's popularity, prestige, and prominence began to fade over time. While the Great War Poets and other modernist bards left a considerable legacy of their own, it was hard to compete with Romantics who were beneficiaries of the era in which they resided. The absence of radio, cinema, and television in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave Georgian and Victorian Age writers an unfair edge over their literary successors who would have to compete with new-fangled, popular diversions derived from society's technological and industrial advancement. Without sports, movie, and rock-and-roll legends to compete with, pre-twentieth century poets, along with their fellow writers, painters, stage performers, civic leaders, and statesmen were the celebrities of their age.
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| Robert Frost 1874-1963 |
Just as contemporary political giants will never again enjoy the near-ubiquitous audiences that Churchill and Roosevelt enjoyed in the early days of radio, so metamodernist (post-postmodernist) poet-stars must figure out which niche "channel" fits them best, not to mention finding one that will actually air their work.
The age of Wordsworth and Longfellow is gone, perhaps forever.
While the collective demand for traditional poetry has obviously atrophied in the past century-or-so, the fundamental need for poetry and what it offers has not changed since Homer—or Adam, for that matter. Cook eloquently captured this need in his preface to the 1958 edition of 101 Famous Poems.
"This is the age of science, of steel—of speed and the cement road. The age of hard faces and hard highways. Science and steel demand the medium of prose. Speed requires only the look—the gesture. What need then, for poetry?"Great need!"There are souls, in these noise-tired times, that turn aside into unfrequented lanes, where the deep woods have harbored the fragrances of many a blossoming season. Here the light, filtering through perfect forms, arranges itself in lovely patterns for those who perceive beauty."
The concision and cogency of Cook's apology of poetry as a "needed" art hooked me when I first read it back in the early 1990s and I've been a disciple of his philosophy of our "need" for poetry ever since. Yet, finding myself ensconced in the third decade of the twenty-first century, I have been tempted to shout back across the decades and query Cook what all the fuss was about. After all, to a GenXer like me, the 1950s were a simpler, quieter time—not the booming and bustling industrial leviathan Cook alluded to in his preface. Most things are, of course, relative to other times and things, and that is precisely what makes Cook's words so perpetually prescient and relevant to our own age. The genius of traditional poets, "whose distant footsteps echo through the corridors of Time," (3) is found in their rich timelessness—as well as the ongoing relevance and universal applicability of their messages.
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| The Great WORDSWORTH A Poet for All Seasons |
This is one reason why hip-hop is so popular.
Psalms of Life invites those in the rising generations to reconsider erstwhile greats in conjunction with contemporary traditionalists who take "the road less traveled" (4) in providing poetic offerings that are best absorbed in solitude and perhaps best enjoyed without the aid of any modern accoutrements.
As foreign a concept as this may be to many in our metamodernist world so deluged by technological devices and flashy sensory stimuli, the value of approaching poetry and literature the old fashioned way remains as effervescent as it is ever-present. Indeed, there are times when radios, televisions, I-pods, I-pads, laptops, and smart phones ought to be turned off. The same holds true for social media platforms.
Such occasions provide us with glorious opportunities to engage in old-fashioned—but never fully out of style—activities such as thinking, reading, taking a technology-free walk, filling one's lungs with fresh air on that walk, stooping down to smell a flower, tip-toeing up to sniff a spring blossom on a tree limb, conversing with present human beings, and even—as strange as it may sound to some—to simply enjoy being quiet and alone with oneself at regular (and healthy) intervals of time.
One might add to such self-renewing activities the occasional cracking open of a book of traditional poetry—just like Dad did with his memorable reading of Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman that unforgettable afternoon back in the early 1990s when I was just a lad. Such acts provide us with golden opportunities to read, ponder, and reflect upon the classics as well as some more obscure works. You may find that doing so is pleasurable and relaxing—even therapeutic!
As Longfellow invitingly suggests and persuasively implores:
"Come, read to me some poem,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Some simple and heartfelt lay,That shall soothe this restless feeling,And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.For, like strains of martial music,Their mighty thoughts suggestLife's endless toil and endeavor;And tonight I long for rest.Read from some humbler poet,Whose songs gushed from his heart,As showers from the clouds of summer,Or tears from the eyelids start;Who, through long days of labor,And nights devoid of ease,Still heard in his soul the musicOf wonderful melodies.Such songs have power to quietThe restless pulse of care,And come like the benedictionThat follows after prayer.Then read from the treasured volume,The poem of thy choice,And lend to the rhyme of the poet,The beauty of thy voice" (5).
More ambitious souls may even try their hand at the memorization and recitation of their favorites—a mind-enhancing exercise for your brain that I personally love and highly recommend. I am confident such activities will increase your mental acuity, expand your cognitive clarity, and extend your cerebral longevity—and perhaps even your life!
Aside from extracting pleasure from the experience, such wading (or immersion) into the pathways of poetry can also prove instructive. Indeed, the pedagogical value of poetry often trumps prose in the same way that Jesus' parables transcend more prosaic, pharisaic, and didactic deliveries of doctrine. Poetic lessons are not only more memorable than prosaic ones, but couplets, quatrains, and other versified reverberations of memory are more likely to spontaneously remind and inspire than the less-likely recall of non-rhyming maxims and facts.
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| "The British are Coming!" Longfellow's famous poem made Paul Revere's memorable ride even more famous than it already was. |
I was hooked!
101 Famous Poems further introduced me to other classics of the English language dating back to the Immortal Bard. Mesmerized and enchanted by the vivid language and delightful prosody of such poetical works, I all but worshipped their authors. Moreover, I learned many life lessons, had other principles powerfully reinforced, and derived much pleasure from my repeated consumption, memorization, and recitation of their work.
Recent contemporary literary criticism of Longfellow—and others like him—has often been unflattering, diminishing his genius and castigating him as being overly simplistic and didactic. While his work's antiquity has not (nor will it ever) lead to its extinction, it has led to its reevaluation, and almost by default, its devaluation and undervaluation (5a).
Bereft of adequate training and erudition as a poetic scholar, I am unqualified to add my two cents to the canon of scholarly critique; I am a doctor of education, not of letters. As such, my poetical aims are primarily pedagogic, although I will not apologize for my own layman's critique presented in this chapter. I think it is well deserved by those whom I seek to defend, uphold, and champion (i.e. Longfellow, Wordsworth, and Company).
In my view, poetry should exist for three main purposes. First, it should instruct. Second, it should inspire noble thoughts, speech, and actions. Third, to borrow a phrase from scripture, it should please the eye (and ear) and gladden the heart (6).
While pleasure is purposely prioritized beneath instruction and inspiration, its importance and value should not be underestimated. As Emerson so eloquently and cogently declared in his famous poem, The Rhodora: On Being Asked Whence Is the Flower
"... if eyes were meant for seeing ...
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being." (7).
I'm confident Emerson would echo this sentiment as it relates to aural, olfactory, and other sentient experiences as well.
Second, the more perfect the prosody, the more illuminating the language, and the more eloquent the elocution, the more incisively and effectively the poem will instruct and inspire. Thus, all three purposes may work harmoniously together to maximize the synergy and overall impact of a poem on readers, hearers, and most importantly—students.
Historically, poetry has been utilized as an important, even an essential pedagogical power tool. From the New England Primer, McGuffy Readers, and Nursery Rhymes of centuries past to School House Rock, Dora the Explorer, and The Wiggles in more recent decades, rhyme is perennially summoned to instruct young—and not so young—students in a variety of subject matters, including personal development and character education.
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| Poetry belongs in the classroom... and outside of the classroom. Poetry belongs everywhere! |
Simply stated, poetry belongs in the classroom, and not just in English class. I am confident that creative pedagogues of all subjects can find myriad uses for this versatile vehicle of classroom instruction and edification—if only they will.
From an instrument of basic mnemonics and rote learning in all subjects (including the hard sciences) to a compelling medium for storytelling, narrative history, and critical thinking in theology and the liberal arts—including philosophy and history—poetry can and ought to be tapped by educators everywhere, every chance they get.
The real magic of poetry in the classroom is found in its capacity for being memorable. To wit: I have long since forgotten many, if not most, of the relatively unimportant factual details I temporarily retained over the course of my eighth, ninth, and tenth-grade English classes. Yet I can still recite Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken verbatim after memorizing it nearly 20 years ago in my 8th grade English class. Or was it 9th or 10th grade English? I can't even remember exactly when I memorized it, but I still have all 16 lines of that 4-stanza masterpiece burned into my long-term memory and can recall (recite) it at a moment's notice.
If you don't believe me, just ask me sometime and I'll be happy to provide you with a spontaneous performance!
"Thirty days hath SeptemberApril, June, and November;February has twenty-eight (28)—alone but funWhile all the rest have thirty-one (31).Then every fourth (leap) year's extra fineCuz February has twenty-nine" (8).
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| The Brilliant Benjamin Franklin |
Whether the lesson is on gossip and vitriol...
"A man's tongue is soft, and bone doth lack,Yet a stroke therewith may break a man's back."
Contentment and simplicity...
"If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles."
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| The Wise Dr. Franklin |
"If you would not be forgotten,As soon as you are dead and rotten,Either write something worth the reading,Or do something worth the writing."
Ask me if that little quatrain has inspired me in my own quest to leave a legacy as a writer and entrepreneur...
YES, it has... on many occasions.
THANK YOU, Dr. Franklin!
Yes, poetry makes learning easier—and certainly more memorable, and our most memorable lessons have a way of translating into the most meaningful ones as well.
In previous generations, poetry in general—and Longfellow's poetry in particular—was once "widely taught in schools" (9). As such, poetry has been—and I would argue, can be again—perennial power in the hands of educators and well-invested pedagogical profit in the minds and hands of pupils. My appeal, therefore, is not only for educators to better investigate how they might utilize poetry in their classrooms, but an even more specific call for a return to the poetic genre that a successful contemporary poet and prolific modern anthologist—Dana Gioia—calls "inspirational didactic verse" (10).
Regardless of any and all critical disdain scholars have explicitly or implicitly heaped upon traditional schoolhouse classics like Longfellow's A Psalm of Life or The Builders, it is sufficiently obvious as to be self-evident that such poems can provide students with moral education that contribute to the development of upright character and good citizenship.
Regardless where they may stack up against other poems in the judgment of the critical literati, why not utilize them nonetheless to teach and inspire the development of desirable character traits such as: vision, hard work, patience, persistence, honesty, integrity, enthusiasm, and a positive outlook?
It's hard to see how anyone, regardless of their political or social ideology, could be at serious odds with promoting such values and virtues. Indeed, I can't think of any group—regardless of their platform or pet political projects—that would say they don't value courage, honesty, hard work, determination, fairness, and integrity. Such virtues and characteristics are universally admired and sought-after.
They always have been, and they always will be.
Thus it is that I seek to promote the work of Longfellow—and others like him—who penned verse intentionally in the inspirational didactic genre. And thus it is that I seek to further resurrect this sleeping pedagogical giant by diligently adding my own two cents to the fire (11).
My own poetry is written for pedagogy and pleasure, and in that order. I also read poetry and other literary genres for the same reasons—and also in the same order and priority. To literary critics who may view my own verse as little more than second-rate parroting of other, better, and erstwhile poets, you will hear little push-back from me. I'm not here to promote myself as a great poet or to try and best Longfellow in a literary sense. My objective is rather to join him—and others like him—by adding my own inspirational-didactic poetical voice to the choir, and then to direct the combined music in the direction of students of all ages.
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The purpose of this pedagogy is to influence citizens of the United States—and beyond—to become better individuals in the promotion of happier families, healthier communities, and more perfect unions around the globe. I write only secondarily to please the senses with the beautiful sights and sounds of well-crafted language. Although I confess I will be gratified if I, in the eyes of any reader, happen to succeed in any way on this item of secondary importance and value (12).
Tune in next Wednesday to read, Chapter 3: Mentoring Psalmists...
—Dr. JJ
May 24, 2023
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
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Chapter 2 Notes:
1). From Longfellow's poem, The Day is Done.
2). Noyes, A. (1926) in Cook, R.J.'s 101 Famous Poems. Chicago, Illinois: The Cable Company. Google Books revised edition. Pages 119-122.
3). From Longfellow's poem, The Day is Done.
4). From Frost's The Road Not Taken.
5). From Longfellow's poem, The Day is Done in Cook, R.J. (1926) 101 Famous Poems. Chicago, IL: The Cable Company. Good Books version. Pages 109-110.
5a). See Dana Gioia's article, Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism in Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture. (2004). St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press. See also Footnote 12.
6). See Doctrine & Covenants 59:18.
7). From Emerson's poem, The Rhodora.
8). There are many different versions of this same little ditty. The one printed here is of my own composition.
9). From Dana Gioia's article, Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism in Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture. (2004). St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press. Page 56.
10. Ibid. Page 68.
11. "Add my two cents to the fire" is a saying borrowed from one of my best friends, France Nielson, a dentist in Las Vegas, NV.
12. The ideas I share in this article were influenced by several essays written by contemporary poet, Dana Gioia, including Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture, Longfellow in the Aftermath of Modernism, Can Poetry Matter? Notes on the New Formalism, and The Poet in the Age of Prose. I express my gratitude to Gioia and acknowledge his tremendous contributions to contemporary poetry as well as the resurrection of poetic interest in bards of the past. One of Gioia's own poems, Pity the Beautiful, ranks among my all-time favorites.
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