Edgar Guest

Edgar Albert Guest (20 August 1881 – 5 August 1959) was a British-born American poet who became known as the People's Poet. His poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life.

Edgar Guest
Guest on his radio program, 1935.
BornEdgar Albert Guest
(1881-08-20)20 August 1881
Birmingham, England
Died5 August 1959(1959-08-05) (aged 77)
Detroit, Michigan, US
Resting placeWoodlawn Cemetery
Pen nameEddie Guest
OccupationPoet
NationalityAmerican

Early life

Guest was born in Birmingham, England in 1881. That year, his family moved from England to the United States, where he was to grow up.

Career

After he began at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy and then a reporter, his first poem appeared 11 December 1898. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America, and his sentimental, optimistic poems were in the same vein as the light verse of Nick Kenny, who wrote syndicated columns during the same decades.

From his first published work in the Detroit Free Press until his death in 1959, Guest penned some 11,000 poems which were syndicated in some 300 newspapers and collected in more than 20 books, including A Heap o' Livin' (1916) and Just Folks (1923–1957). Guest was made Poet Laureate of Michigan, the only poet to have been awarded the title.

His popularity led to a weekly Detroit radio show which he hosted from 1931 until 1942, followed by a 1951 NBC television series, A Guest in Your House.[1] He also had a thrice-weekly transcribed radio program that began January 15, 1941, and was sponsored by Land O'Lakes Creameries. The program featured singer Eddy Howard.[2]

Guest was made a Freemason in Detroit, where he was a lifetime member of Ashlar Lodge No. 91. In honor of Guest's devotion to the Craft, community, and humanity in general, the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Michigan established the Edgar A. Guest Award for lodges to present to non-Masons within the community who have demonstrated distinguished service to the community and their fellow man.[3]

When Guest died in 1959, he was buried in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery.

His grand-niece Judith Guest is a novelist who wrote Ordinary People (novel).

Excerpts

Guest's most famous poem is the oft-quoted "Home":

It don't make a difference how rich ye get t' be'
How much yer chairs and tables cost, how great the luxury;
It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything.
Within the walls there's got t' be some babies born an' then...
Right there ye've got t' bring em up t' women good, an' men;
Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' living in it."
—Excerpt from "Home," It takes A Heap o' Livin' (1916)
When you're up against a trouble,
Meet it squarely, face to face,
Lift your chin, and set your shoulders,
Plant your feet and take a brace,
When it's vain to try to dodge it,
Do the best that you can do.
You may fail, but you may conquer –
See it through!
—Excerpt from "See It Through"

Guest's most motivating poem:

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.

—Excerpt from "The Secret of the Ages" (1926)

Reputation

Guest's work still occasionally appears in periodicals such as Reader's Digest, and some favorites, such as "Myself" and "Thanksgiving," are still studied today. However, in one of the most quoted appraisals of his work, Dorothy Parker reputedly said: "I'd rather flunk my Wassermann test than read a poem by Edgar Guest."[4]

A favorite poet of Edith Bunker from the TV show All In The Family. She quotes him in a few episodes including 'Prisoner In The House', first broadcast on 4 January 1975.[5]

Edgar Guest is depicted on the badge worn by the crew of Count Olaf's submarine Carmelita in The Grim Grotto, the eleventh book in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. In the book Guest is mocked as a "writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics" (The Grim Grotto (2004) p. 281).

In the novel I Am Legend, the main character Robert Neville sardonically comments on his own internal monologue: "The last man in the world is Edgar Guest".[6]

Guest's poem "It Couldn't Be Done" was recited by Idris Elba on the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year Award on 16 December 2012 whilst celebrating Team GB and Paralympics GB winning the team award for 2012.[7]

Guest's poem "The Epicure" was reproduced in Mad #84 (January 1964) with new illustrations by Don Martin.[8]

Guest's poem "See It Through," was used in a Chrysler 300 commercial.

Guest's poem "It Couldn't Be Done" was used in an Audi commercial.

Tracey Gold did read Guest's poem "A Child Of Mine" during the funeral of Judith Barsi.

"It Couldn't Be Done" inspired a parody, "They Said That It Couldn't Be Done", by comedian Benny Hill.[9]

Works
  • Home Rhymes, from Breakfast Table Chat (1909)
  • The Panama Canal (1915)
  • A Heap o' Livin' (1916)
  • Just Glad Things (1916)
  • Just Folks (1917)
  • Over Here (1918)
  • Poems of Patriotism (1918)
  • The Path to Home(1919)
  • A Dozen New Poems (1920)
  • Sunny Songs (1920)
  • Keep Going (Don't Quit) (1921)
  • When Day Is Done (1921)
  • Don't Quit (3 March 1921)
  • All That Matters (1922)
  • Making The House A Home (1922)
  • The Passing Throng (1923)
  • Mother (1925)
  • The Light of Faith (1926)
  • The Secret of The Ages (1926)
  • You (1927)
  • Harbor Lights of Home (1928)
  • Rhymes of Childhood (1928)
  • Poems for the Home Folks (1930)
  • The Friendly Way (1931)
  • Faith (1932)
  • Life's Highway (1933)
  • Collected Verse of Edgar Guest (1934)
  • All in a Lifetime (1938)
  • Between You and Me: My Philosophy of Life (1938)
  • Today and Tomorrow (1942)
  • Living the Years (1949)
  • Sermons We See
  • Courage
  • The Proof of Worth
  • See It Through
  • Life's Slacker
  • Team Work
  • Can't
  • At Christmas
  • Things Work Out
  • Have you Earned your Tomorrow

References
  1. Hyatt, Wesley (1997). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television. Watson-Guptill Publications. p. 194. ISBN 978-0823083152. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  2. "Land O'Lakes Series" (PDF). Broadcasting. 13 January 1941. p. 32. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  3. McKeown, Trevor W. "Edgar Albert Guest". freemasonry.bcy.ca. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  4. Andrews, Clarence (1992). Michigan in Literature. Wayne State University Press. p. 260. ISBN 0814323685.
  5. "Biography of English American Poet Edgar Guest Part 1". trivia-library.com. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  6. Richard Matheson (1954). I Am Legend. Nelson Doubleday. p. 68.
  7. Paul Owen (16 December 2012). "BBC Sports Personality of the Year – as it happened!". theguardian.com Sport. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  8. "Doug Gilford's Mad Cover Site – Mad #84". madcoversite.com.
  9. "They Said It Couldn't Be Done... Benny Hill". www.monologues.co.uk.
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