Rod McKuen (1933–2015)

Move over Shakespeare! Time for a new career, Amanda Gorman! Maya Angelou, Robert Frost, culture has judged you and found you wanting. This small book proclaims Rod McKuen as one of the very best, and in fact *the* best-selling poet of all time.

This small volume -- a mere 61 pages -- offers such hyperbolic assertions with neither embarrassment nor much in the way of convincing evidence. The "lyrics" taken from a record album called "Pastorale" range from a few lines to 20, printed on largely empty pages with large margins. The common theme is Love, along with Nature, and the sentiments are, no doubt, Heartfelt. They also are saccharine and mawkish, and bring to mind the sort of kitsch one would find in a Hallmark greeting card.

To enhance the mood they are intended to elicit, this books contains multiple photos of the Very Sensitive Poet himself. Here's our Rod, looking dreamy and sensitive off to the left, his quiet demeanor disturbed only by his loud, vertically striped shirt. Here he is in a huggable cable knit sweater, looking in the other direction, his blonde-bleached locks curling over his ears. Here he is, seen from distance on the back of a horse (we think it's probably Rod, though it's hard to tell). And here he is again, looking thoughtfully downward towards his umbilicus, in another of those loud striped shirts that he loves. No doubt he's thinking of a past lover, or maybe a future one. Regarding the latter, his images are easy for sentimental girls and women of a certain age to project their own unfulfilled longings. And who's to say they might not be fulfilled with Rod Himself, who, by his frank if questionable claim in interviews, was an equal opportunity lover when it came to gender.

I got little out of this small volume. But then, poetry is not a genre I much appreciate. Thus, this "review" probably warrants no attention from those millions more cultured and sensitive than I. For what it's worth, I do enjoy Shel Silverstein and Edward Lear, and after two beers, have been known to quote "Song of Hiawatha" at length ("By the Shores of Gitche-Goomee" and so on). I can also sing a few words of "Jean", Rod's Academy Award-nominated composition -- No.1 in 1969 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.… (more)