Customer Reviews

Best Loved Poems of the American People

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There's a distinct nineteenth century feel to this wide-ranging collection of mostly American verse, as though perhaps one might encounter the book by the bedside of Huck Finn's benefactor, the Widow Douglas. Ah, but it's really not that old. First published in 1936 and dedicated to the memory of Adolph S. Ochs, long-time publisher of the New York Times, by editor Hazel Felleman, this is a collection for Everyman. The fact that it's still in print is tribute to Felleman's good sense of what people like. No known species of poetry is shunned. Verse, ditty and doggerel stand side by side with Shelley and Keats (but no Shakespeare!). There are rousing Sousa stanzas and homey hymn-like lines respecting home and hearth, flag and country, and tributes to the dog. There are also epigrams and epithets and limericks and songs sung blue. Felleman arranges the contents by subject matter, beginning with "Love and Friendship" followed by "Inspiration" through "Patriotism and War," "Memory and Grief," etc., ending with "Nature," "Animals," and "Various Themes." There's a slew of poems by "Unknown," some of them doing a mighty justice to anonymity, e.g., "Get a Transfer" ("If you are on the Gloomy Line/ Get a transfer/If you're inclined to fret and pine/Get a transfer...") There are "answers" to popular poems, and burlesques and parodies aplenty. Here you'll find, if you've been looking (and even if you haven't), "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" and "Animal Fair" ("The birds and the bees were there!"), and Joyce Kilmer's much, much maligned "Trees" ("...only God can make a tree"), but also Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and Poe's "The Raven," and Keats's "La Belle Dame sans Merci" and William Wordsworth's "Daffodils."

Did I mention there's no Shakespeare? One wonders why. Also no William Blake. However there is a poem entitled "A Woman's Answer to the Vampire" by Felicia Blake after Kipling's "The Vampire" ("A fool there was and he made his prayer/(Even as you and I!)/To a rag and bone and hank of hair...,"etc., answered with "A fool there was, and she lowered her pride,/(Even as you and I)/To a bunch of conceit in a masculine hide"). Naturally there is no T. S. Eliot, but there is an Ebenezer Elliott who wrote, "When Wilt Thou Save the People?" ("O, God of mercy, when?"), and strangely no Ogden Nash, who might seem at home here--but perhaps there was a copyright problem. His "answer" to Joyce Kilmer goes, "I think that I shall never see/A billboard lovely as a tree./Indeed, unless the billboards fall/I'll never see a tree at all."

Lest you think I am slyly making fun of this book, let me tell you, I love Kipling's "If," and if it weren't for that unfortunate last line, I think it would be close to a great poem. I also love poems like Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," (included) and Henry Clay Work's "The Ship that Never Returned," which inspired a take off tune by the Kingston Trio in the fifties, "Did he ever return?/No he never returned/His fate is still unlearned/He rides beneath the streets of Boston/He's the man who never returned." I also love stuff like Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins" and Alan Seeger's romantic, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death." And where else can you find a poem by Abraham Lincoln? Or a religious ditty innocently titled, "No Sects in Heaven" (Huh?) Or one called "To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train ("O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,/Missing so much and so much?") And I positively delight in Robert W. Service (three printed here, including "The Spell of the Yukon," but alas no "The Cremation of Sam McGee," although there's a nice take off by Edward E. Paramore, Jr. called, "The Ballad of Yukon Jake"). There is even a poem reputed to have been dictated to a spiritual medium by the dead Edgar Alan Poe called "Streets of Baltimore" rendered in the rhythms of "The Raven." (Sorry about that.) "Quoth the raven: Nevermore!" becoming (gulp) "thro' the streets of Baltimore!"

Furthermore I love "Poems that Tell a Story"! Although Browning's "My Last Duchess" didn't make the cut, there is here the truly delightful "The Enchanted Shirt" by John Hay, a tale about a king who needed to sleep a night in the shirt of a happy man. And of course there's "Casey at the Bat" followed by "Casey's Revenge" and "Casey--Twenty Years Later." (Some purists might point out that with first base open, the correct strategy was to give Casey an intentional pass; but I ask you, where's the fun in that?)

I could go on, but I think the picture's getting clear. This collection really is a revelation of the American psyche as seen by a newspaper person seventy years ago. (Felleman was for fifteen years the editor of the Queries and Answers page of The New York Times Book Review.) As such this should be required reading for historians and sociologists alike.

My parents gave this volume to me for Christmas when I was just 10. I was and still am a voracious reader, captivated by the rhythm and meter of language. This book introduced me to poetry in a fun, enjoyable way. The broad categories include: Love and Friendship, Inspiration, Poems that tell a Story, Faith and Reverence, Home and Mother, Childhood and Youth, Patriotism and War, Humor and Whimsey, Memory and Grief, Nature, Animals, and Various Themes. As an adult, the poems selected in this 670 page tome are not all of my favorites, but they yet strike a gentle idealistic chord in my soul. They ring with the thoughts of a bygone era, before mass media distracted people from books. Yes, they are romantic, yes they are old-fashioned, yes many of them are not of the highest literary quality. Yet I love them for their quirkiness and old-fashioned thoughts. And in many ways as I read, I cannot help but think that we are not so very different from our ancestors, after all. I highly recommend this book.

This collection of poems, copyrighted in 1936, was compiled by Hazel Felleman, who drew on her 15-year experience as editor of the Queries and Answers page of The New York Times Book Review. She received multiple inquiries daily from all over the country about favorite poems, learning much about the poetry preferences of Americans. She used that knowledge to great advantage in this selection of poems. Many of the poems that I remember from school (I'm an American), up to and including college, are here. Although I don't consider myself a lover of poetry, this book is one of my favorites (definitely my favorite poetry book among several that I own), one that I refer to often. My grandchildren also greatly enjoy being read to aloud from it.

I own a dog-eared, oft-read, much-loved copy of this book which I received as a gift at the age of 12. It remains one of my favorite books of all time--the kind you sit with by a fire on a cold night, the kind you never throw away, the kind you keep by your bedside. These are poems to lift the spirit and inspire the mind with their beautiful rythms, rhymes, and messages. This review may sound corny, but I really do feel this way about this book. It is the kind of book I would pass on to my children and grandchildren . . . one of those rare books I would also call a "friend".

Hazel Felleman was editor of the Queries and Answers page of the New York Times for nearly 15 years. In that time, she had the opportunity to research and discover many a bizarre and odd fact. However, one of the most frequent requests was that of finding a favorite poem or author. It is out of this experience that she collected the works in this volume, The Best Loved Poems of the American People, published in 1936. She said she used this sampling of people's preferences rather than her own in collecting the works in this volume. Of course, today we would know that the readership of the New York Times is a fairly specific subset of the American people, not necessarily fairly representative of the whole, and those who write to the New York Times are yet an even more rarified subset. In any case, this is a good collection drawn from a widely cast net of inquiries.

Felleman put the poems in categories thematically. These are the broad themes of the book:

+ Love and Friendship

+ Inspiration
+ Poems that Tell a Story
+ Faith and Reverence
+ Home and Mother
+ Childhood and Youth
+ Patriotism and War
+ Humor and Whimsey
+ Memory and Grief
+ Nature
+ Animals
+ Various Themes

There are a lot of poems here with Unknown listed for the author, verses rather famous but either not attributed to any particular person, or attributed to too many people, the true origin of which could not be verified.

These are not all American poets. These are poems that Americans love, so naturally there are many poets from the British side, and various poems from other languages that have been translated into English. Wordsworth, Byron, Arnold, Tennyson, Burns and Kipling figure prominently. Heine, von Logau, Nadaud, and Rueckert make an appearance in translation.

In the nearly 650 pages of the book are as many poems as pages, including such famous pieces as Sonnet from the Portuguese -- the first poem -- and Paul Revere's Ride to relatively unknown pieces (today). I've read a lot of poetry, and always have a book of poetry as one of my reading pieces, but nearly a quarter of the poems in here I'd never seen or heard before.

Perhaps that is the value of this book. It is a snapshot of the popular poems of the time between world wars. Poems sometimes go out of favor, and thus are no longer continued. Popular jingles and lyrics may be well known for a time, and then forgotten. I think the editions of the Oxford Book of English Verse are similar in this regard, that each edition captures popular and timeless in a delicate balance. Felleman wasn't going to timeless here, but rather popular. I found this was especially true in the Humor and Whimsey section.

One criticism of the book is that there is editing going on without being made explicit. The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe is actually a fairly long poem, and yet here we only get a few pages of judiciously selected stanzas, keeping the flow of the narrative in the poetry, but not giving us any indication that there was an omission. I would appreciate knowing the editing.

In many ways an excellent collection even today, although I would wish for an update. How can you have a current best loved poems collection without Frost or cummings?

This book contains poems relating to every possible subject. Long poems, happy poems, sad poems, poems that tell a story, poems about mom, a lover, animals are all here. The print is easy to read and all of the poems are categorized by subjects. A great asset to any poem collection and great for children to use as a poetry source for school. If you need a little pick-me-up after a long day at work, this is the book for you!

This is a book my Mother, Brother and I read together when I was a child. There are many, many beautiful Poems in this collection. I have owned this book for as long as I can remember, I am 52 and I read and reread this book always finding something new and special. In this book I have found so much pleasure I am ordering a new copy because my original copy is worn and coming apart. Thank you for having the book in supply, since it was published in 1936, I thought my worn copy was irreplaceable. If I had one book, this would be that book. If you love someone, or have a special friend this is a most wonderful experience to share.

My mother had a copy of the Best Loved Poems of the American People and I always wanted a copy. This is one book that you can pick up at any time and find something interesting and fitting. I really enjoy it. Happy reading.

My dad read these poems to me 40 years ago. They are the best most inspiring and well organized collection I have ever seen. It was a privelage to buy one book for myself and one for my parents.

I absolutly loved this book. There are all the types of poems in different sections. I loved most the poems but some i think had no meaning to me. My favorite poem is called "Two Pictures"
It used alot of descrptive words and created a vivd picture in my mind what the two pictures would look like. This poem gives you ideas on how two wirte your own poem because of the inspiration. I think you should buy this book and read it for all your family ot enjoy. Remember, th is book has poems best loved of the amrican people.

Britton Sorensen