Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on the Lessons of ‘The Demagogue’)

“That trumpet tongue which taught a nation
Loud lessons in vituperation
Teaches it yet another, viz.:
How sweet the noise of silence is.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “The Demagogue,” in Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades (1960)

 “The Demagogue” is an unusual poem in the collective works of Phyllis McGinley. Her contemporary reputation as a master of light verse—not to mention her undisguised affection for her suburban lifestyle—resulted in her being slighted by more fashionable writers who appeared in The Paris Review, such as W. D. Snodgrass or, nearly 10 years ago, Dan Piepenbring.

But from time to time she took note of the events of the day, in ways that were not fundamentally humorous—and perhaps nowhere with such compressed, ironic force, as in the lines I’ve quoted above.

I was unable to locate the magazine in which “The Demagogue” first appeared, but the Table of Contents for Times Three indicates that it came out in “The Fifties.” 

My guess, then, is that it was written in reaction to the braying, bellicose, and bullying U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who wreaked so much damage in that decade, Joe McCarthy.

(Did “the noise of silence” represent the random moments when he caught his breath before exploiting the media’s appetite for bright, shiny, fact-free soundbites—or the Senate censure that led McCarthy to be ignored by colleagues and reporters at last?)

McCarthy’s psychological descendant remains in existence today. Amazingly, diehard supporters try to explain away the threats of this new demagogue as “just kidding,” even when he disclaims any intention to be a dictator except on the first day in office his second time around as President.

The wonder is not that he continues to advertise his transgressive intent, but that some people refuse to credit it, while others who should know better from past experience believe that somehow he will be stopped. Yet it’s a shorter distance than many apologists hope from whipping up frenzy as a demagogue to exercising ultimate power as a dictator.

Just remember: When it comes to seizing such opportunities, fortune favors the knave. 

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on Discipline, ‘The Groundwork of All Art’)

“Discipline is the groundwork of all art. The abstract painter has to know first how to draw, the symbolist to write ordinary lines. And the poet, no matter how soon he intends to throw overboard his formalism, has first to be capable of a correctly rhymed and metered stanza.” —Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “The Light Side of the Moon,” The American Scholar (August 1965)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on Little Girls at Christmastime)

“The knowingness of little girls,
Is hidden underneath their curls.
 
“Obligingly, since parents fancy
The season's tinsel necromancy,
They take some pains to make pretense
Of duped and eager innocence.
 
“Agnostics born but Bernhardts bred,
They hang the stocking by the bed,
Make plans, and pleasure their begetters
By writing Santa lengthy letters.
Only too well aware the fruit
Is shinier plunder, richer loot.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “What Every Woman Knows,” in Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades, With Seventy New Poems (1961)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on Reasoning With a Six-Year-Old)

“I call that parent rash and wild
Who’d reason with a six-year child,
Believing little twigs are bent
By calm, considered argument.

“In bandying words with progeny,
There’s no percentage I can see,
And people who, imprudent, do so,
Will wonder how their troubles grew so.”— Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “The Velvet Hand,” in Times Three: Selected Verses From Three Decades (1961)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on a Girl Starting Adolescence)

“Thirteen’s anomalous – not that, not this:

Not folded bud, or wave that laps a shore,

Or moth proverbial from the chrysalis.

Is the one age defeats the metaphor.

Is not a town, like childhood, strongly walled

But easily surrounded; is no city.

Nor, quitted once, can it be quite recalled –

Not even with pity.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “Portrait of a Girl With Comic Book,” The New Yorker, Oct. 18, 1952, reprinted in American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Vol. 2: E.E. Cummings to May Swenson, edited by Robert Haas and John Hollander (2000)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on One Neglected by Pollsters)

“Day after day across this mighty land,

While thunderous presses roll,

Young men with hat and briefcases in hand

(Or so I understand)

Wander from poll to poll,

Asking odd men in some peculiar street

Which candidate is theirs, which breakfast food

They least dislike to eat,

Which heresy offends their current mood.

But, left or right though thick the issues fall,

Nobody asks me anything at all.”— American poet Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “The Forgotten Woman,” in Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades With Seventy New Poems (1960)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on November, ‘Spinster of the Year’)

“Away with vanity of man.

  Now comes to visit here

The Maiden Aunt, the Puritan,

  The Spinster of the year.”—Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978), “November,” in The Four Seasons: Poems, edited by J.D. McClatchy (Everyman’s Library, 2008)

Quote of the Day (Phyllis McGinley, on Humbler Applications of Science)

“Let the earth fall or the earth spin!

A brave new world might well begin

With no invention

Worth the mention

Save paper towels and aspirin.”—Phyllis McGinley, “Reactionary Essay on Applied Science,” in Times Three (1951)