FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

	July 13, 2000
	Another poem from poet laureate Robert Pinsky's project of asking Americans to read their favorite poem. Tonight's reader is an accountant from Stockton, California.

MARY McWHORTER, Accountant: Well, when I was about 12 years old, in seventh grade, my seventh-grade teacher gave us this poem as an assignment, and it was a very interesting poem. A lot of the kids in the class found it to be kind of funny. You know, at that age, they read things, and they don't understand how serious they are, the effects of war and things like that. But the way things were in my family, my father was blind during World War II, and this poem really brought home to me the tragedies that occurred during war and things that had happened in my father's life that I wasn't even aware of. And reading this made me start to think about how bad things must have been for him when he was, you know, in his late teens and early 20's, going to war, having people die in front of him, being blinded at such an early age. He was only about 18 when he was blinded during the service. My mom and dad met when she was probably about 19 years old. He was in the hospital, and she wound up falling in love with him. And I always wonder how hard it must have been for her to go home and tell her family, "I'm marrying a blind man," because back then, you didn't see them holding down jobs and taking care of a family. And you didn't see too many women going out and holding down a full-time job. He started working in the county courthouse in Hudson County in New Jersey. He was able to open a small lunch counter in this courthouse, and that was how he supported our family. And they were married probably about 25... I guess about 20, 25 years before she died. And I was nine years old, my sister was 14, and my brother was 18. But it was very hard on my father, because he relied on her for a lot of things. And after she died, my father told his friend, "God took my eyes away from me twice." And in spite of the fact that these terrible things happened to him, he managed to go on with his life. He's never one to feel sorry for himself. After my mother died, he had a painting done of her from a photograph, and of course it was a very hard time for him. But he told all his... anybody who came into the house, "the first person who tells me 'who's that?' When they look at that picture, I'm going back and getting my money back," because obviously, he couldn't tell by looking at it. But he had a very good sense of humor. Everybody loved him. Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floud'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white yes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patri mori. And that last Latin line means basically, it is sweet and noble to die for one's country. I still remember our teacher, he was very expressive when he read the poem. But the kids all laughed at him when he read it because they thought, man, this guy is so melodramatic and really getting into it. They all thought it was funny. But I think kids that age are like that. They don't take it seriously. I don't think I reacted the same way that they did. You know, I kind of took it in, and obviously, all these years later, I remembered it. And when I first heard about this project, that was the first poem that I thought of.