A Challenge of The Challenge

I am NOT happy with myself right now, however, I am O.K. with same.
Because of this Personal Challenge.

Because of this Challenge I am "behind" in the planned postings.
T. S. Eliot pulled me into his vortex and part of my brain is still going into and into his words, and the words of his explainers. I've found I need explainers - and YouTube's a place to look and listen.

Then it was Shel Silverstein's turn. Living from 1930 to 1999, he could be the definition of "Creative Person." My brain can sort of keep up with Mr. Silverstein's words, if not with his deeds. I'd known he was a singer-songwriter, a writer and illustrator of well-known children's books, such as "Where the Sidewalk Ends," "The Giving Tree," and "The Missing Piece." I'd known he'd written the song,"A Boy Named Sue," made famous by singer, Johnny Cash. I had not known he'd also authored "Sylvia's Mother," "The Unicorn," and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone." (And a long rollicking piece about a pot-smoking competition!)

I'd known Mr. Silverstein worked as a "Playboy" cartoonist and illustrator for many years. I'd not known he also wrote screenplays. 

Those who come to his work through only his whimsical children's books have some major surprises awaiting!

A bit of Mr. Silverstein's imaginative images:
"If you were only one inch tall
you'd ride a worm to school -"

I miss Shel Silverstein...

The next morning I put my finger on the sheets of Facebook Friends' suggestions.
Edna St. Vincent Mallay (1892 - 1950)
Well, did you you that there is a recording of Johnny Cash reciting her poem, "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver"? Yes, there is.

Ms. Mallay's work earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. She was well-known for her poetry, but was also featured in many publications - shot by the leading photographers of the day- as a celebrity who knew how to appeal to her audience.

Her life was not an easy one - she dealt with drugs, alcoholism, and chronic pain. 

From her book, "Mine the Harvest":
"And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you
 All through my life? - sharing my fire, my bed,
 Sharing - oh, worst of all things? - the same head? - 
 And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?"

And her life was cut short by a fall, which proved fatal.
Her life's truth:
 "My candle burns at both ends;
 it will not last the night;
 but, ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - 
 it gives a lovely light!"

Our third poet of the day is the multi-faceted Rudyard Kipling. Kipling ALSO has a Johnny Cash connection - though separated by a degree! His famous poem, "If," was recited by actor Dennis Hopper on the Johnny Cash television show.

Kipling's poem, "The Power of the Dog," was suggested by a friend. I'd not known of this famous work. I do now. Almost any dog lover will relate to the words so true and sad.

But Kipling was so much more than a poet. This world traveler wrote in many forms, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at the ripe old age of forty-two!

As happens with many well-known artists his reputation has roller-coastered through the years. But Kipling's spirited work continues to find fans.

He even has a connection with T. S. Eliot - who edited "A Choice of Kipling's Verse," published in 1941. Eliot wrote that Kipling had "An immense gift of using words, an amazing curiosity and power of observation with his mind and with all his senses, the mask of the entertainer, and beyond that a queer gift of second sight, of transmitting messages from elsewhere, a gift so disconcerting that when we are made aware of it that thenceforth we are never sure when it is not present: all this makes Kipling a writer impossible to wholly to understand and quite impossible to belittle."

Thus, endth today's romp through the lives of three far-different poets - 
It' might be time for me to go listen to one thing they all had in common - Johnny Cash.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

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