[The Path to Home] (By: Edgar Albert Guest) [published: August, 2008]

by Edgar A. Guest

1919. A collection of verse from the poet and author of Making the House a Home. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

The family of Edgar Albert Guest settled in Detroit, Michigan, in 1891. When his father lost his job in 1893, eleven-year-old Edgar between working odd jobs after school. In 1895, the Detroit Free Press hired him as a copy boy, and he worked for the newspaper for almost sixty-five years. Death of the father compelled the seventeen-year-old poet to drop out high school and to work full time at the newspaper. From copy boy, he worked his way to a job in the news department. His first poem appeared on 11 December 1898. His weekly column, "Chaff," first appeared in 1904; his topical verses eventually became the daily "Breakfast Table Chat," which was syndicated to over three-hundred newspapers throughout the United States.

Guest married Nellie Crossman in 1906. The couple had three children. His brother Harry printed his first two books, Home Rhymes and Just Glad Things, in small editions. His verse quickly found an audience and the Chicago firm of Reilly and Britton began to publish his books at a rate of nearly one per year. His collections include Just Folks (1917), Over Here (1918), When Day Is Done (1921), The Passing Throng (1923), Harbor Lights of Home (1928), and Today and Tomorrow (1942).

From 1931 to 1942, Guest broadcast a weekly program on NBC radio. In 1951, "A Guest in Your Home" appeared on NBC TV. He published more than twenty volumes of poetry and was thought to have written over 11,000 poems. Guest has been called "the poet of the people." Most often, his poems were fourteen lines long and presented a deeply sentimental view of everyday life. He considered himself "a newspaper man who wrote verses." Of his poem he said, "I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them." His Collected Verse appeared in 1934 and went into at least eleven editions.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/...

Reviews

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wikipedia says that, by writing optimistic, inspirational poems, this guy came to be called The People's Poet. This book was published in 1919, and aside from a few lines about men marching off, there isn't much hint that a war was going on: that is except for a poem in which the Germans are shown to be evil in that they, apparently from pure spite, dynamited an apple tree in France.
This guy makes me think of Norman Rockwell (I imagine this is an insult to Rockwell in terms of their relative technical dexterity). He praises home and country in stereotypical, gentle, comic ways that are sort of revolting in their assertions of naivete. And yet, one thinks, is it really an awful thing that there are people out there praising bare happiness, morality, family?
This book was written in a world where The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock had been available to read for several years. Next time I teach a modern poetry unit, I want to begin with some Edgar Guest, so that students can see a real contrast. Ahem:

Best way to read a book I know
Is get a lad of six or so,
And curl him up upon my knee
Deep in a big arm chair, where we
Can catch the warmth of blazing coals,
And then let two contented souls
Melt into one, old age and youth,
Sharing adventure's marvelous truth.

[Susan Keraus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems that warmed my heart - filled with goodness & simplicity.

[kinsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love me some "ye-olde-world" books. I like poetry by "simple" folk, like farmers and carpenters and hard working people from periods like 1890-1920. These people have so much to say about life and can say it so simply (yet beautifully), and it's sad to see most of them forgotten amidst the well-known poets that came after them, people with easily remembered names. Don't worry Edgar A. Guest. I'll remember you.