🚀 go-pugleaf

George J. Dance wrote:

> On 2022-08-12 5:05 a.m., Will Dockery wrote:
>> On Friday, August 12, 2022 at 2:49:31 AM UTC-4, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:
>>> On 2022-08-10 7:29 p.m., Victor H. wrote:
>>>> George J. Dance wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I haven't noticed NG around lately. For those who've missed their
>>>>> Jeopardy questions, maybe this will tide you over. So welcome to No
>>>>> Jeopardy.
>>>>
>>>>> This poet once recited before his country's head of government,
>>>>> sharing the bill with a piano-playing dog.
>>>>
>>>> Good one, I thought maybe Robert Frost but I'm not sure...
>>> I just gave Ash the correct question, so you get the story. Mind you,
>>> it's one I read years ago, I don't remember the source (I think an old
>>> /Reader's Digest/.) I haven't been able to find a source online, so this
>>> is purely from memory. It's a story that Duncan Campbell Scott liked to
>>> tell:
>>>
>>> Scott was a famous Canadian poet, one of the Confederation Group, who
>>> worked as a bureaucrat in federal the Department of Indian Affairs. One
>>> day the Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, invited him to a
>>> formal dinner at the PM's residence. Scott expected he'd have to recite
>>> his poetry as after-dinner entertainmnent, but you don't turn down the
>>> PM if you work for him. (There was no tenure for civil servants in those
>>> days.) So Scott went to dinner.
>>>
>>> After dinner, everyone withdrew to the main salon. But, rather than
>>> introducing Scott, King had his Irish setter, Pat, brought in. Pat ran
>>> to the grand piano. hopped on the stool, and began banging his paws on
>>> the keyboard and howling. After a few minutes, he stopped, jumped down
>>> again, and was led away.
>>>
>>> Then King turned to the poet and said: "All right, Scott. It's your turn
>>> now."
>>
>> I'm not very familiar with Scott yet, although I've read about the Confederation Group.
>>
>> This is a good prompt to read some of Duncan Campbell Scott's poetry soon.
>>
>> 🙂

>   Yes! That was my hope - to whet the interest in those interested in
> learning more about a new (to them) poet, and it is so good to be
> reminded that such people still exist on the group.

> I'll warn you that Scott has a reputation up here - not a good one - but
> not for his poetry. And, like with Pound, Eliot, Ginsberg, et al, that
> doesn't matter (from my perspective) - as their poetry is all that's
> important about them.

> I'll look on the blog for the most accessible of Scott's poems, and post
> it on the group today, in full.


Oh, so that is his story, I do like what I have read from him...