REVIEW POTPOURRI: Poet Lee Sharkey

by Peter Cates

Poet Lee Sharkey

Lee Sharkey

Poet Lee Sharkey (1945-2020) moved to Maine in 1971 and taught writing for several years at the University of Maine’s Farmington campus. She was also a social and peace activist, mentored aspiring writers from many walks of life, particularly those in prison and psychiatric hospitals, and protested the Iraq War as a member of the Women in Black which frequently held rallies in the state capital.

Her poem exercise in the Maine Speaks anthology evokes the need for empathy on the deepest emotional level towards those who are suffering for whatever reason :

“focus on someone you love as much as you love your breath.
imagine yourself abruptly deprived of that relationship. imagine your breathing.
imagine a world where everyone’s lost their most precious possession,
and wanders helplessly. now watch them disappear: each was someone’s beloved
if only their own. imagine mourning without mourners, voiceless dirges
stampeding across grasslands like bison before Massacring Buffalo Bill,
the tremors of earth, image and after image, settling into the absence of language.”

Anyone who’s familiar with 20th century American poetry might notice a similarity between Sharkey’s use of lower case letters at the beginning of a sentence or phrase and that of e.e. cummings. The similarity pretty much ends there.

For me, Sharkey’s compassionate depiction of the human condition parallels on a spiritual level that of the 19th century English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) whose pious Anglican faith extended to reaching out to women in prison, unwed mothers and prostitutes in friendship and whose own poems evoked the terrifying gap between those who live the easy life of selfish luxury and those who are suffering.

An example is her poem Pastime:

“A boat amid the ripples, drifting, rocking,
Two idle people, without pause or aim;
While in the ominous west there gathers darkness
Flushed with flame.

“A haycock in a hayfield backing, lapping,
Two drowsy people pillowed round about;
While in the ominous west across the darkness
Flame leaps out.
“Better a wrecked life than a life so aimless,
Better a wrecked life than a life so soft;
The ominous west glooms thundering, with its fire
Lit aloft.”

Paul Whiteman

Paul Whiteman

Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra – Rhapsody in Blue; Reader’s Digest RDK-5965, cassette, 1989 reissue of various 1920s Victor 78s.

Bandleader Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) conducted the 1924 world premiere at Carnegie Hall of Rhapsody in Blue (among those in the audience was Sergei Rachmaninoff ) .

Whiteman had an incredibly successful and musically accomplished dance band which recorded for Victor, sold several million discs and acquired so much wealth that he bought his own train for nationwide tours and fitted it with comfortable accommodations for band members, the caboose being his own luxurious suite.

He hired a few African American musicians during the horrible years of racial segregation and employed Bing Crosby and Johnny Mercer at the beginning of their careers.

The tape contains ten selections that include the first recording of Rhapsody in Blue with George Gershwin at the piano and a number of Great American Songbook standards – Old Man River, Linger Awhile, When It’s Sleepytime Down South, Stairway to the Stars and the Japanese Sandman. The transfers from the old 78s were done well.

In 1948, Whiteman wrote a fascinating book of anecdotes, Records for the Millions, via which he mentions two of his hobbies, collecting records and photographs.

Gene Hackman

Gene Hackman

Among the many fine films of recently deceased actor Gene Hackman is the 1986 Hoosiers. It’s a very evocative period piece taking place in 1951 in rural Indiana in which a high school basketball coach portrayed by Hackman is trying to motivate his players to win the state championship but is struggling with his own private issues and those of some of the players. The cinematography conveying the landscape of the small town Midwest, the vintage cars and the unspoiled countryside is sublime. Hackman’s fellow cast members include Dennis Hopper and Barbara Hersey.