A Word-Lined Life: Guest Editor’s Discussion, Winter 2024

Dear Readers,

Poetry has been part of my life since my life began, or so I came to know as soon as I was old enough to realize how lucky I was to be raised in an apartment filled with books, ever available. My father, Herman, was, for a time, a literary editor and book critic for Chicago newspapers. He was also the author of many books, all of them banged out on the typewriter in his small office, and that sound of the keys cooking is my oldest and dearest memory. 

Both he and my mother, Marilew, who worked in the world of art and publishing, loved words and writers, many of whom—Robert Graves and Nelson Algren among them—were so taken with my mother’s beauty and vivacious personality that they wrote poems to her, usually on postcards from faraway places.

The first poet I met was Gwendolyn Brooks, at a party in my parents’ house. There were many parties, and this time I was 10 and she was gentle and kind and read to me.

I would grow up to share my parents’ affection for words. How could I not? Words have lined my life, and I grew up to enter the world of journalism, writing for newspapers and writing books about Chicago and crime and taverns. But my work was peppered with poets, from those long gone and revered and taught on campuses to those up and coming and finding their way. 

That latter group has been guided by Marc Smith, the creator of the poetry slam, who shouted one night, “Poetry is the heart of the people and the people is everyone”; he has been an inspiration to a generation of young people trying to find their voices. I remember well sitting in the Green Mill tavern watching and listening to one of those poets, Patricia Smith, a young colleague and great friend of mine charged with minor chores at the Chicago Daily News, sizzle the night as she took her first steps to international poetry renown.

Being asked to serve as February’s Poem of the Day guest editor was an honor. It also proved to be an intense personal journey. I was reminded of poets and poems long forgotten, and encountered new and powerful voices.

February has never been a celebratory time for me, locked in Midwestern grays and shivers. It is, of course, the month of Valentine’s Day, and searching out poems about love has been an excursion filled with all manner of surprising twists, or joys and pains.

In my digging, I also came across a poem by bygone, rightly lionized Chicago newspaperman Ben Hecht. It was published in the February 1918 issue of the then six-year-old Poetry magazine and titled “Snow Monotones.” I have no doubt that Hecht and Poetry’s founder Harriet Monroe were pals. It’s a pretty good poem, though not included in my selections, and wisely Monroe never published another Hecht poem written for a departed newspaper colleague. Another Hecht poem, “To A Dead Newspaperman,” is one of the first I ever memorized. It goes like this:

We know each other’s daydreams
And the hopes that come to grief
For we write each other’s obits
And they’re Godalmighty brief.

—Rick Kogan

The guest editors of Poem of the Day represent the readers of the newsletter and of poetry: a broad and diverse group with many talents, interests, passions, and reasons for bringing the arts and humanities into their lives. Guest editors select a number of poems for the month and write editor’s notes for each selection in addition to a blog post summarizing their experience and themes. Subscribe to Poem of the Day to read the guest editor’s selections and to experience future unique perspectives in poetry!

Read more about Poem of the Day in the archive editor’s blog.