E-mail a friendJohn Lithgow
airdate November 6, 2007
Widely known for his starring role in the hit series, 3rd Rock from the Sun, John Lithgow has spent more than 20 years honing his craft. His career honors include two Tonys, two Emmys, two Oscar and four Grammy nods. He's also released several children's albums and is a best-selling author of children's books, including I'm a Manatee. Born into a theatrical family, Lithgow debuted on stage at age 6. After finishing Harvard, the Fulbright scholar studied at London's Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
John Lithgow
Tavis: I am pleased to welcome John Lithgow back to this program. The Emmy and Tony-winning actor is also an accomplished author. His latest project is a collection of poetry aimed at parents and children. The book is called "The Poet's Corner: The One and Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family." A companion CD also available. John Lithgow, an honor, as always, to have you on this program.
John Lithgow: Tavis, wonderful to see you.
Tavis: Good to see you. Now you know I love you to death, would do anything for you, but that's a pretty bold title.
Lithgow: I know. That is -
Tavis: The one and only poetry book for the whole family.
Lithgow: That is arrogant. (Laughter)
Tavis: How can there be one only book for the whole family?
Lithgow: How am I going to sell these books, Tavis? (Laughter)
Tavis: So when you titled the book that, what did you - duh - set out to do?
Lithgow: Well, it's a book that encompasses all of poetry written in the English language, so it's a kind of sampling; it's a compendium of all these centuries. And I don't know that there's any book that does it quite like that, in such a concise and presentable way.
Tavis: And yet, such a challenge, I would imagine, to not offend so many great poets who didn't get selected for this volume.
Lithgow: Well, they're all dead, so - (laughter).
Tavis: Nobody's feelings hurt, huh?
Lithgow: That's right. Basically, it goes from Geoffrey Chaucer right up to Alan Ginsburg and contemporary poets. But they are - my phrase is their work has outlived them; it has survived them. They are great dead poets who wrote in English.
Tavis: To your point now, I literally was just in a conversation the other day about the lives that we lead and the legacies that we leave, and wrestling with a number of intellectuals about what it means to have your work outlive you. So for you, how do you regard one who has created such a legacy, whether it's a poet or John Lithgow, where your work outlives you? How do you -
Lithgow: Well, that's a very large question. I don't know that anyone writes in terms of leaving a legacy or being remembered. I think poets write very much in the moment. They write for themselves probably more than for any other reason, and for the moment. They're putting their feelings down on paper. Of course, there are millions of poems that don't survive into immortality; they don't sort of get into orbit, but the ones that do, do so for very peculiar reasons.
They have somehow captured the imagination of generations, and they've come to mean different things for different generations over the years and even centuries.
Tavis: So for you, given that you write and that you love to read, and you pulled these compendiums together, this is just a John Lithgow question. What, for John Lithgow, makes for a good poem? Whether it's serious or irreverent, but what, for you, makes for a good poem?
Lithgow: Well, I do write my own poems, but they are doggerel poems, they are story poems, principally for children. I don't presume to put myself into the company of poets. I just have a good time.
These - I set out to do this book - I'm not a deep poetry reader, I'm not a scholar of poetry by any means. I studied poetry up to a certain extent in college, but when I was asked to think about doing this and I began to assemble poems, I knew more poems than I realized, and they meant more to me than I remembered. And they were important to me at different stages of my life.
What makes a great poem? It's impossible to define that, except that it somehow or other connects. This is a compilation of poems of every conceivable variety. Some of them are very dark and disturbing poems; some of them are totally lighthearted, and some of them are zany. I even include song lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Gilbert - William Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan.
In a way, it's just to sort of provoke people's thoughts about exactly that question - why are poems important to us?
Tavis: For certain, if Gershwin isn't poetry, nothing is, so I'm not offended by your putting Gershwin in the text. Tell me, then, how you - I should preface this question. Every year on my radio program, I've done this for every year I've been on public radio; April is poetry month, as you know. And every week on my program in April we spend the show talking about poetry, and I call in some of my favorites, from Maya Angelou to a 13-year-old kid here in town named Evan Brown who writes poetry.
So every year in April I spend a lot of time on the radio program on PRI talking about poetry, and yet I still can't figure out, although I love poetry, I can't figure out where it ranks with Americans in terms of the kind of stuff that we read. It's not often you see poetry books on the top of "The New York Times" bestseller list. So where do you think poetry ranks for us as Americans who read?
Lithgow: I think it ranks low.
Tavis: Yeah, too low, huh?
Lithgow: It's - and there again, I think it's a curious thing, because as I said, I think it's true of a lot of people that poetry means more to them than they realize. Maya Angelou really does stir our emotions, and a lot of her poems are very familiar to us; more than we even realize. The book is a way of kind of reminding people of that, and it was sort of a conscious choice not to even try to make it consistent thematically.
It was just to kind of stir people's interest and enthusiasm, particularly young people and people who are new to poetry, but also just to remind them of how important poetry is to them. That's how I begin my introduction, is just listing all the different ways that poetry is meaningful to us.
Tavis: I'm going to have you read something, a piece that you have selected that I would like you to read, if you don't mind, in just a second here. Before I do that, when you sit down to, as you put it, have fun and to write the stuff that you do write for kids, what's your process? How do you go about this? What's the trick for writing poetry that kids get turned on by?
Lithgow: To me, it's come in so many different ways. A lot of them are song lyrics that I've sort of reconfigured into books. Only a couple of times have I ever sat down as if it were an assignment and really concentrated and figured out a story, and I'm just too lazy. Usually, somebody makes a suggestion or somebody hires me to do something, and somehow or other I turn it into a book. "Carnival of the Animals" was the narration of a ballet suite, and the choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, came to me and asked me to do it. As soon as I'm asked, I can come up with these things.
Tavis: Well, I'm going to ask you to do something, then, and see if you can come up with something. So I hear - I'm told when you're not writing poetry that you've moonlighted from time to time as an actor.
Lithgow: (Laughter) Sometimes.
Tavis: So you know how this works. That camera right now, number three, is your camera.
Lithgow: All right, I will perform for you.
Tavis: And you tell the audience what you're going to do.
Lithgow: This is actually a poem - there is a CD that's included with the book. I have 12 of my - the best actors among my friends, people like Glenn Close and Jody Foster and Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren and Billy Connolly - all of them -
Tavis: That's the best you could do?
Lithgow: Oh, God. (Laughter) It's a spectacular cast list. All of them sort of reading poets that are suitable to them. And I picked Ogden Nash for myself. I thought you might enjoy this.
Tavis: All right.
Lithgow: This is called "No Doctors Today, Thank You," by Ogden Nash. They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful. Well, today, I feel euphorian. Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetite of a Victorian. Yes, today I may even go forth with out my galoshes. Today, I am a swashbuckler - would anybody like me to buckle any swashes?
This is my euphorian day. I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away. I will tame me a caribou, and bedeck it with marabou. I will pen me my memoirs - ah youth, youth! What euphorian days them was! I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs; I was generally to be found where the food was.
Does anybody want any flotsam? I've got some. Does anybody want any jetsam? I can get some. I can play chopsticks on the Wurlitzer; I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer. I can doff or don my shoes without tying or untying the laces because I am wearing moccasins. And I practically know the difference between serums and anti-toccisons.
Kind people, don't think me purse-proud, don't set me down as vainglorious. I'm just a little euphorious. Ogden Nash.
Tavis: Got to love John Lithgow, my man. The new book from John Lithgow is called "The Poet's Corner: The One and Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family," compiled, of course, by John Lithgow. And if that doesn't turn you on, as he mentioned earlier, as I mentioned, there is a companion CD to be found inside the text, so you can't go wrong with this one. John, as always, good to see you, man.
Lithgow: Tavis, always wonderful.
Tavis: Glad to have you here. That's our show for tonight.
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