WITH BOWS TO KEATS AND KEITH'S
["The World's Most Famous Shoulders">[
"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken,
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent upon a peak in Darien."
"Bee" Palmer has taken the raw, human—all too human—stuff of the underworld, with its sighs of sadness and regret, its mad merriment, its swift blaze of passion, its turbulent dances, its outlaw music, its songs of the social bandit, and made a new art product of the theatre. She is to the sources of jazz and the blues what François Villon was to the wild life of Paris. Both have found exquisite blossoms of art in the sector of life most removed from the concert room and the boudoir, and their harvest has the vigour, the resolute life, the stimulating quality, the indelible impress of daredevil, care-free, do-as-you-please lives of the picturesque men and women who defy convention.—From Keith's Press Agent.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of jazz,
And many goodly arms and shoulders seen
Quiver and quake—if you know what I mean;
I've seen a lot, as everybody has.
Some plaudits got, while others got the razz.
But when I saw Bee Palmer, shimmy queen,
I shook—in sympathy—my troubled bean,
And said, "This is the utter razmataz."
Then felt I like some patient with a pain
When a new surgeon swims into his ken,
Or like stout Brodie, when, with reeling brain,
He jumped into the river. There and then
I subwayed up and took the morning train
To Norwalk, Naugatuck, and Darien.
To a Vers Librist
"Oh bard," I said, "your verse is free;
The shackles that encumber me,
The fetters that are my obsession,
Are never gyves to your expression.
"The fear of falsities in rhyme,
In metre, quantity, or time,
Is never yours; you sing along
Your unpremeditated song."
"Correct," the young vers librist said.
"Whatever pops into my head
I write, and have but one small fetter:
I start each line with a capital letter.
"But rhyme and metre—Ishkebibble!—
Are actually negligible.
I go ahead, like all my school,
Without a single silly rule."
Of rhyme I am so reverential
He made me feel inconsequential.
I shed some strongly saline tears
For bards I loved in younger years.
"If Keats had fallen for your fluff,"
I said, "he might have done good stuff.
If Burns had thrown his rhymes away,
His songs might still be sung to-day."
O bards of rhyme and metre free,
My gratitude goes out to ye
For all your deathless lines—ahem!
Let's see, now.... What is one of them?
How Do You Tackle Your Work?
How do you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job you find?
Do you grapple the task that comes your way
With a confident, easy mind?
Do you stand right up to the work ahead
Or fearfully pause to view it?
Do you start to toil with a sense of dread?
Or feel that you're going to do it?
You can do as much as you think you can,
But you'll never accomplish more;
If you're afraid of yourself, young man,
There's little for you in store.
For failure comes from the inside first,
It's there if we only knew it,
And you can win, though you face the worst,
If you feel that you're going to do it.
Success! It's found in the soul of you,
And not in the realm of luck!
The world will furnish the work to do,
But you must provide the pluck.
You can do whatever you think you can,
It's all in the way you view it.
It's all in the start that you make, young man:
You must feel that you're going to do it.
How do you tackle your work each day?
With confidence clear, or dread?
What to yourself do you stop and say
When a new task lies ahead?
What is the thought that is in your mind?
Is fear ever running through it?
If so, just tackle the next you find
By thinking you're going to do it.
—From "A Heap o' Livin'," by Edgar A. Guest
I tackle my terrible job each day
With a fear that is well defined;
And I grapple the task that comes my way
With no confidence in my mind.
I try to evade the work ahead,
As I fearfully pause to view it,
And I start to toil with a sense of dread,
And doubt that I'm going to do it.
I can't do as much as I think I can,
And I never accomplish more.
I am scared to death of myself, old man,
As I may have observed before.
I've read the proverbs of Charley Schwab,
Carnegie, and Marvin Hughitt;
But whenever I tackle a difficult job,
O gosh! how I hate to do it!
I try to believe in my vaunted power
With that confident kind of bluff,
But somebody tells me The Conning Tower
Is nothing but awful stuff.
And I take up my impotent pen that night,
And idly and sadly chew it,
As I try to write something merry and bright,
And I know that I shall not do it.
And that's how I tackle my work each day—
With terror and fear and dread—
And all I can see is a long array
Of empty columns ahead.
And those are the thoughts that are in my mind,
And that's about all there's to it.
As long as it's work, of whatever kind,
I'm certain I cannot do it.
Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, in Poetry.
I was very sad, I was very solemn—
I had worked all day grinding out a column.
I came back from dinner at half-past seven,
And I couldn't think of anything till quarter to eleven;
And then I read "Recuerdo," by Miss Millay,
And I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can write that way."
I was very sad, I was very solemn—
I had worked all day whittling out a column.
I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can chirp such a chant,"
And Mr. Geoffrey Parsons said, "I'll bet you can't."
I bit a chunk of chocolate and found it sweet,
And I listened to the trucking on Frankfort Street.
I was very sad, I was very solemn—
I had worked all day fooling with a column.
I got as far as this and took my verses in
To Mr. Geoffrey Parsons, who said, "Kid, you win."
And—not that I imagine that any one'll care—
I blew that jitney on a subway fare.