Resting place Woodlawn Cemetery Occupation Poet Name Edgar Guest Movies The Reform Candidate | Pen name Eddie Guest Nationality American Role Poet | |
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Born Edgar Albert Guest
20 August 1881
Birmingham, England ( 1881-08-20 ) Died August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan, United States Parents Edwin Guest, Julia Wayne Guest Books A Heap O' Livin', Collected Verse, The Path to Home, Poems of Patriotism, Breakfast Table Chat Similar People Francis Marion Crawford, Frank Lloyd, Julia Crawford Ivers | ||
Edgar Guest
Edgar Albert Guest (20 August 1881 in Birmingham, England – 5 August 1959 in Detroit, Michigan) (aka Eddie Guest) was a prolific English-born American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.
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Career
In 1891, Guest moved with his family to the United States from England. After he began at the Detroit Free Press as a copy boy and then a reporter, his first poem appeared 11 December 1898. He became a naturalized citizen in 1902. For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America, and his sentimental, optimistic poems were in the same vein as the light verse of Nick Kenny, who wrote syndicated columns during the same decades.
From his first published work in the Detroit Free Press until his death in 1959, Guest penned some 11,000 poems which were syndicated in some 300 newspapers and collected in more than 20 books, including A Heap o' Livin' (1916) and Just Folks (1917). Guest was made Poet Laureate of Michigan, the only poet to have been awarded the title.
His popularity led to a weekly Detroit radio show which he hosted from 1931 until 1942, followed by a 1951 NBC television series, A Guest in Your Home.
When Guest died in 1959, he was buried in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery.
His great-niece Judith Guest is a successful novelist who wrote Ordinary People.
Excerpts
Guest's most famous poem is the oft-quoted "Home":
It don't make a difference how rich ye get t' be'
How much yer chairs and tables cost, how great the luxury;
It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything.
Within the hi how are you
Right there ye've got t' bring em up t' women good, an' men;
Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' living in it."
When you're up against a trouble,
Guest's most motivating poem:
Reputation
Guest's work still occasionally appears in periodicals such as Reader's Digest, and some favorites, such as "Myself" and "Thanksgiving," are still studied today. However, in one of the most quoted appraisals of his work, Dorothy Parker reputedly said: "I'd rather flunk my Wassermann test than read a poem by Edgar Guest."
In popular culture
A favorite poet of Edith Bunker from the TV show All In The Family. She quotes him in a few episodes including 'Prisoner In The House', first broadcast on 4 January 1975.
Edgar Guest is depicted on the badge worn by the crew of Count Olaf's submarine Carmelita in The Grim Grotto, the eleventh book in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. In the book Guest is mocked as a "writer of limited skill, who wrote awkward, tedious poetry on hopelessly sentimental topics" (The Grim Grotto (2004) page 281).
In the novel I Am Legend, the main character Robert Neville sardonically comments on his own internal monologue: "The last man in the world is Edgar Guest".
Guest's poem "It Couldn't Be Done" was recited by Idris Elba on the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year Award on 16 December 2012 whilst celebrating Team GB and Paralympics GB winning the team award for 2012.
Guest's poem "See It Through," was used in a Chrysler 300 commercial.
Guest's poem "It Couldn't Be Done" was used in an Audi commercial.
Works
"Team Work"
Quotes
I want to be able - as days go by - always to look myself straight in the eye
It matters not what goal you seek Its secret here reposes: You've got to dig from week to week To get Results or Roses
He started to sing as he tackled the thing That couldn't be done - and he did it