Born in Maine a boy, when his parents wanted a girl,
They took a full six months before they gave his name a whirl,
And they drew Edwin from a hat drawn by a man from Arlington Maine
And the remainder of his life, “Edwin Arlington Robinson,” gave the poor boy a pain.
And as he grew into a man of letters, he wrote some fine poems at school,
But the woman he most loved in life married his brother, a fool.
And so, he showed a pessimist, in poetry ever mocking and darkly cruel.
And Pulitzers he won three times, the man could write a jewel.
To write such poems as Robinson’s, you must learn what “sardonic” means,
And suffer a lot in crisply-writ verse that tastes mostly like baked beans.
……………………………..
Okay, I know this evil Mickey poem does not do E.A. Robinson justice. He was a fine master of verse-craft. It has been said (by an Iowa State American Literature professor, so I know it must be true) that Robinson, when asked what he did one day, said, “I studied my poem all day, and then added a comma.”
Surprised by the answer, the questioner then asked what he did the next day. ”I studied the poem all day again, and took the comma out.”
Recently I read his book of poetry called The Children of the Night. It is a fine book of sardonic poems (here meaning; poems that are mocking, pessimistic, and cynical… in case you didn’t look up “sardonic.”) He often writes in this book poems about Thomas Hardy and the poems written by Matthew Arnold and other dusty old writers of the late and early 20th centuries. So, I have given old E.A. the same honor in Mickey’s book of poems as he gave them.
Catch a Falling Star 