In Someones Shadow

by Rod McKuen

A collection of love poems set against a background of changing seasons together with a selection of song lyrics from A Man Alone

Genres: Poetry

107 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Rod McKuen (born April 29, 1933) was a bestselling American poet, composer, and singer, instrumental in the revitalization of popular poetry that took place in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Born Rodney Marvin McKuen in Oakland, California, McKuen ran away from home at the age of eleven to escape an alcoholic stepfather and to send what money he could to his mother. After a series of jobs, from logger, ranch hand, railroad worker to rodeo cowboy, throughout the west, McKuen began in the 1950s to excite audiences with his poetry readings, appearing with such well-known poets as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; during this time, he often used the pseudonym "Dor".

McKuen moved to New York City in 1959 to compose and conduct for the TV show The CBS Workshop. By the 1960s he had achieved fame, far surpassing in sales the works of the Beat poets who preceded him. During the early 1960s he spent most of his time in France. This began his project to translate the work of legendary singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, into English. After Brel died he said, "As friends and as musical collaborators we had traveled, toured and written - together and apart - the events of our lives as if they were songs, and I guess they were. When news of Jacques’ death came I stayed locked in my bedroom and drank for a week. That kind of self pity was something he wouldn’t have approved of, but all I could do was replay our songs (our children) and ruminate over our unfinished life together."[1]

He became an icon across college campuses for his ability to capture in verse the feelings of anxiety, love, confusion, and hope that were common during the Vietnam era. His public readings had the drawing power of a rock concert.

McKuen's commercial success is unparalleled in the field of modern poetry. His poetic works have been translated into a dozen languages and sold over 65 million copies. Throughout his career he has continued to enjoy sell-out concerts around the world and appears regularly at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall.

Edward Habib's liner notes for McKuen's Amsterdam Concert album make the often-repeated claim that Rod McKuen is the best-selling and most widely read poet of all time. This claim is probably rooted in the fact that McKuen's works -- unlike those of Shakespeare or Dante Alighieri -- are copyrighted, and his total sales can be more readily quantified.

As a songwriter, he contributed to the sale of over 100 million records. His material has been recorded by such artists as Frank Sinatra (who in 1969 recorded A Man Alone, an album of McKuen's songs), Johnny Cash who (just before his death) recorded McKuen's "Love's Been Good To Me", Waylon Jennings, The London Philharmonic, Greta Keller, Perry Como, and Madonna. Perhaps his most well-known song is "Jean", recorded by Oliver in 1969 for the soundtrack to the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. In 1959, McKuen released a novelty single on the Brunswick label called "The Mummy". Bob Mcfadden and Dor was listed as the artist.. In 1961, he had a hit single titled "Oliver Twist".. McKuen has proven to be a prolific songwriter, penning over 1500 songs. He collaborated with a variety of internationally renowned composers, including Henry Mancini and John Williams, and a highly successful series of albums with Anita Kerr. His symphonies, concertos, and other classical works have been performed by orchestras around the globe. His work as a composer in the film industry has garnered him two Academy Award nominations.

Throughout his multi-award-winning career, McKuen paired his artistic endeavors with a spirit for social reform. Before a tour of South Africa in the 1970s, McKuen demanded “mixed seating” among white and black concert-goers, opening the doors for successful tours by a variety of African-American performers, including Sammy Davis, Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald. He also spearheaded efforts to raise AIDS awareness and fund charities for children and senior

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy reading Rod McKuen's poetry...always reminds me of San Francisco...not sure why - but I guess it really doesn't matter. Think that recently people have forgotten how very influential his poetry was - he really did make poetry more approachable for a lot of people - I think some critics have been too harsh on his legacy.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with poetry when i was in college.
Browsing the bookshelves one day, I found an old copy of one of Rod McKuens books.

He writes things so simply yet paints a heartwrenching picture.
Some of his writing is laid down like a journal....
describing a trip hes taken, the women hes been with, things hes seen and thought.

He writes in a way that i can relate to.
If you havent read anything by him yet, I suggest you do.
You are missing out on some beautiful writing!

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved Rod McKuens poems for a long time, and this book is no different. His poetry is full of raw moments and deep emotion, snapshots of intensity. Poignant and relatable.

[Hailie Miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly there wasn’t any poems in here that I loved or even liked. Maybe I just didn’t understand the writing of this author. My grandma gave it to me cause she knows I love to read but the poem book was honestly not the one for me. And I see really good reviews on this book about how people absolutely love it but I just don’t see it.

[Viv Eliot · Rating 1 out of 5]

No, just: no. Everything to despise about poetry is in this book.

[Amanda Papenfus · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I picked this up in the used book store I flipped to page 67 and loved that poem “Farming”. Little did I know that would be the only really good poem of the book. A few others were okay. Most were terrible, especially the “love” poems, most of which contained criticism or backhanded compliments.

For example “June 1” tells her not to “blacken up” her eyes or he’ll make her cry and then makes a contrast with another girl who didn’t wear makeup and “must have been content with herself” and ends in telling her “the only lipstick you should wear is love”; “July 11” talks about being “...as selfish with my love/as you are with your body/in the morning”; “July 12” instructs her not to cry; “July 16” reflects how insecure he is about an “elevator man nodding” at her; and August 27” refers to making love to her among “menial tasks”.

This is all especially sad in light of the fact I also picked it up because of an inscription from “JR” about how “this book explains somewhat the way I feel about you” asking his “love” to read the ones he has marked and saying “each day my love grows stronger”. This made me feel bad for the person(s) Rod wrote to and whomever JR wanted to read those words.

When it later poems he talks about having “few visitors here anymore” (“Out Beyond the Window”) and people having learned “Everything, it seems, but how to stay in touch” (“A Word From the Sponsor) I wasn’t surprised and assumed it had to do with how he perceives and treats people more than a general trend.

I was stunned to read at the end that this guy was a best seller and that he wrote for Sinatra. I don’t know that I’ve ever given a one star review and if I have it’s been a long time. I was actually sad for this to be my first book of September but then it’s better than it being last since I have plenty of time to cleanse my mind of it.

[Tami Villalobos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this Book, amazing peotry that leaves you with wonder and insight can't wait to read his other books...
... And Autumn Came,
Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows,
Listen to the Warm
Lonesome Cities,
Twelve Years of Christmas,

In Someone's Shadow....
Thanks for sharing your Authorship

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The actual “In Someone’s Shadow” section is very pleasant and moves well. I enjoyed those poems and the tiny world that they built. I also love the pocket version I read. It’s so tiny and perfect for those poems in particular. I didn’t very much care for the rest of the poems beyond “In Someone’s Shadow,” though. There isn’t much too them, like Shel Silverstein for adults, but without half the subtle genius of SS. The poems sound like those of a cantankerous old crank trying his best to sound clever or twee or hip. They’re night and day from the genuine emotion and experience of the “In Someone’s Shadow” poems.

[Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first came across Rod McKuen in high school. I don't know why it's been so long since I read his work - it's always lovely. His work isn't for everyone. It's very free verse, and, to my mind, my experiential than symbolic. This book feels very true to me, in ways I don't think I can articulate.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems kind of hokey now...but I loved this when I was a teenager.

[Victoria & David Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

"For the most part, McKuen's poems are superficial and platitudinous and frequently silly."
Nora Ephron

For a time in the late sixties and early seventies Rod McKuen was really really popular:
He wrote and published poetry, composed and recorded best selling record albums (including one for Frank Sinatra), had hit singles with his versions of music by Jacques Brel (Seasons in the Sun, If you go away), composed for the movies (The prime of miss Jean Brodie, A Boy Named Charlie Brown), and had sold out concerts where his husky voice and self deprecating humor went over well (To cure a cold take a good book to bed or a friend who's read one.)
What he couldn't get was respect.
Fifty some years later it is his lyrics (and the way that he sings them) that continue to give pleasure.
(See "Sold Out at Carnegie Hall" from 1969).
As to his poetry?
It's ok in a Hallmark sort of way.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this collection best so far. It's so odd being able to see exactly what I loved about these poems as a teen and realizing that's exactly what renders them trite to me as an adult. I did like this poem quite a bit:

April 12
We come into the world alone.
We go away the same.
We're meant to spend the interlude between in closeness.
Or so we tell ourselves.
But it's a long way from the morning to the evening.

[Gregory Ashe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, very much enjoyed another volume of McKuen's poetry. Very easy read; not quite as melancholy as the other volume I read. Again, found something quite timely -- Children One and All contains this poignant line: "Some of us go right on a-preachin',/without making too much sense./Some of us hide behind a wall,/some behind a fence./But at night you can't tell picket fences/from bricks that tower tall./Then we're only children,/children one and all."

[Eden Honey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read all of Rod's work and will continue to reread his poetry through my lifetime. In this collection, I particularly enjoyed notions of time, love, and loneliness. There's something so magical about the way one describes the coming of winter, or the coming of spring. I love the way my mind is lost in every word, hanging on to reach the next line. As a dog-earer of pages, I found I folded down a few less in this collection in particular, but adored it nonetheless.

[Nick Shears · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the note in my diary, written at 18, many decades ago:
‘Mainly the story of a love affair in poems in diary form, Spring through Winter. Some of it is beautiful, most of it fair to good, and some of it very weak. He writes too obviously for the masses. I prefer his more intensely personal pieces.’

I shouldn’t apologise for being too full of myself, since I was so young, but I do. 🙄

[Bruce Cline · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are amazing books of poetry that speak to me, lead me to introspection, and put my mind in places it would not be absent the verse I’m reading. Those select books paint pictures tug at my heart, show me things I need to see, and otherwise open up whole new dress of thought, if not whole worlds. This is not such a book.

[JLM · Rating 5 out of 5]

She bought this book for me in early 1970, at the beginning. When I was apart from her I would read it aloud late at night, it brought me closer to her. We were together a long, intense time. She brought so much to me...and later she took so much away. So much that over fifty years later places still seem empty and that sometimes catches me by surprise. I still have a copy of the book.

[Aazuto_Gh0st · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. the poetry was both literal and not at the same time. Which made it bothe easy and hard to understand. It was a good quick read. It wasn't a book to really offer comfort it was more a book that was made to be somewhat relatable.

[Christian Shackelford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this in a bin to be given away, and ended up reading it in one sitting, out loud to myself. Some of these I know I will come back to time and again: No Whisky Bars, Empty Is, and Something More.

[Cyndi Berve]

Lovely poetry. I forgot how much I loved McKuen years ago!

[Belal · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It troubles me
that there are those
who want their kind of freedom bad enough
to take away their neighbors' in the process."

[Mel | Hot Plots and One Shots · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

[Grace Usleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Can't believe McKay's was selling this for .25 cents. Some real gems in this one! This man was in an absolute chokehold in the month of May.

[Katrina E. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think that the way it's formatted is interesting. I have an original edition, and the fact that titles are left off and replaced with dates gives it a journal-feel, almost like a poetic memoir for the speaker. I like that this style creates intimacy between the reader and the writer. Something I thought was interesting was the varying perspectives on women. Knowing that his peak was in the 70's makes me rationalize some of the stereotyped visions the speaker has of women, but in the way those particular poems are structured, I can't say from a Feminist lens that it's necessarily a product of its time or offensive. If anything, it sounds more like a man expressing something stereotypical men might. My favorite piece from this book is "April 12" which goes:


'We come into the world alone.
We go away the same.
We’re meant to spend the interlude between
in closeness
Or so we tell ourselves
But it’s a long way from the morning
to the evening.'

Short, sweet, sincere.

Though, when I revisit his writing years after my initial reading, I can only think, "Unremarkable."

But I think that about a lot of poets who get big, stay big for a while, and then diminish.

Good, but not great.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought there was a freshness here I wasn't expecting.

[CarolAnn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a book of poetry. Some were good, some were not. Some were poetic, some were confusing. I must not have a deep soul. Enough said.

[Melanie Medved · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Not as good as most of his books. No stand out poems or lines that will linger for me.

[Montserrat Ocampo]

"In Someone's Shadow" by Rod McKuen was one of the most interesting books I've ever read this year. Each page/ poems have been small, but the details and meaning behind each poem were powerful and so meaningful. I could relate to many of them, which made the book a whole lot better because I could feel the tone in the book. I especially loved how in certain pages he wrote a date on the day he wrote the poem because it basically means how he pour want he felt on that day and wrote it down on that page. I rate this book 10/10 and I 100% recommend this book for you to read!