Fixing Myself. Artist unknown.
This weekend I’ve been working with my daughter in memorizing a part of a poem. She has a stanza she has to recite in her school’s upcoming black history month program. When she brought it home I looked at it and immediately wrinkled my brow and tilted my head to the side. It was just the title of the poem and the stanza typed up on plain white paper. Though the stanza seemed easy for her to memorize as it includes a number of “sight words”, or short syllable words that are easily recognizable for beginner readers, I wondered what was the overall message and who was the author. Of course I looked it up and now I’m curious to know how it will fit into black history.
The poem is called “Myself” by Edgar Albert Guest. The overall theme of the poem is the voice expressing to live a truthful life; one with integrity and pride. The voice wishes to stay humble and not perpetrate a lie. I actually like the poem. It seems like a great lesson to have a group of kindergartners recite. Yes, I did go over its meaning with my daughter. She gets it.
“Mommy, I will not tell or live a lie.”
Good.
But again, I wonder what does this have to do with black history? So I looked up the poet Edgar Albert Guest. Well, he’s definitely not black. He is actually a British born poet that moved to Detroit, MI with his family sometime in the late 1800’s. At 13 he began working with the [Detroit] Free Press where he stayed for 60 years. According to Guest’s bio on Poem Hunter:
“Three years after he joined the Free Press, Guest became a cub reporter. He quickly worked his way through the labor beat — a much less consequential beat than it is today — the waterfront beat and the police beat, where he worked “the dog watch” — 3 p.m. to 3 a.m.
By the end of that year — the year he should have been completing high school — Guest had a reputation as a scrappy reporter in a competitive town.
It did not occur to Guest to write in verse until late in 1898 when he was working as assistant exchange editor. It was his job to cull timeless items from the newspapers with which the Free Press exchanged papers for use as fillers. Many of the items were verses. Guest figured he might just as well write verse as clip it and submitted one of his own, a dialect verse, to Sunday editor Arthur Mosley. The Free Press was choosy about publishing the literary efforts of staff members and Guest, a 17-year-old dropout, might have been seen as something of an upstart. But Mosley decided to publish the verse, His verse ran on Dec. 11, 1898.” – Poem Hunter
I’m still not sure how Guest will tie into black history. I shall see when I attend my daughter’s program later this week. Still, the poem “Myself” is a timeless piece as the voice recognizes that it seems that all want some sort of fame and recognition. Yet, how many remain true to who they are? How many refuse to compromise themselves or integrity? I have to admit, I’ve seen some pretty desperate or (as they say in the streets now) thirsty folks. Is it really that serious? Maybe they need to read Guest’s poem. Guest or his poem may not have anything to do with black history, but it’s a universal message.
Myself
Edgar Albert Guest
I have to live with myself and so
I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able as days go by,
always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don’t want to stand with the setting sun
and hate myself for the things I have done.
I don’t want to keep on a closet shelf
a lot of secrets about myself
and fool myself as I come and go
into thinking no one else will ever know
the kind of person I really am,
I don’t want to dress up myself in sham.
I want to go out with my head erect
I want to deserve all men’s respect;
but here in the struggle for fame and wealth
I want to be able to like myself.
I don’t want to look at myself and know that
I am bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can hide myself from me;
I see what others may never see;
I know what others may never know,
I never can fool myself and so,
whatever happens I want to be
self respecting and conscience free.
Mahoganie: Musings East of the Anacostia River 
Posted on February 24, 2013
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