Garrison Keillor read “Birds of Passage” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Class of 1825, this morning on The Writer’s Almanac. Longfellow was not only one of the most well-known writers of his day, but one of the most famous people in the world-a literary Michael Jordan. While he is not as widely read or studied as he was even a generation ago when legions of students were made to memorized his verse, Longfellow’s poems are still among the most often quoted, and many of his lines-or versions of them-remain part of our popular vernacular.
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If you like Longfellow, I want to remind readers of Charles Calhoun’s fine biography of the poet, “Longfellow: a Rediscovered Life” which came out in 2004 or so.
Even though he can be a little syrupy at times, I still think the so-called “literary Michael Jordan” rarely commits a total foul or a double dribble – he’s such a pillar of Americana. I appreciate how even today, kids (at least in Portland’s Longfellow Elementary School) are introduced to poetry by reciting Longfellow.