Subject: RE: BS: Edgar A. Guest
From:
Joe Offer
Date: 27 Aug 06 - 11:50 PM
It seemed the only poet my dad liked was Edgar A. Guest, who lived a few streets over from Dad's boyhood home in Detroit. When I was young, I used to think Guest's poetry was incredibly corny, and I used to tease my dad about him. I got into trouble for that more than once, because I was a pretty merciless tease. I looked at a book of Edgar A. Guest's poetry recently, and I was surprised that I liked it. I hated myself for that, I'll tell ya.
I thought there was a connection between Edgar A. Guest and WJR, the clear channel, 50,000 watt radio station in Detroit. Turns out I was right - Edgar A. Guest recided poetry on the station's first broadcast; and his son, "Bud" Guest, was host of the Guest House radio program on WJR, which was enormously popular in Detroit at one time.
-Joe Offer-
Here's a bio of Edgar A. Guest from the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame:Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959) was born in Birmingham, England, and brought to the U.S. by his father in 1891. He began as an office boy for the Detroit Free Press in 1895 - the start of an affiliation that would span almost 65 years. In 1898, a temporary assignment on the exchange desk, where filler verse and feature items were clipped for reprinting, led Guest to submit a few poems of his poems of his own to the Sunday editor. Soon he had a weekly column of verse and observations called "Blue Monday Chat," followed by a daily column, "Breakfast Table Chat." By 1908, "The Poet of the People" was working almost exclusively in meter and rhyme. Guest's popularity spread like wildfire among Free Press readers who asked for collections of his folksy verses. He authored 20 such books and for more than 30 years there wasn't a Free Press that didn't carry his verse. His work eventually was syndicated in more than 100 newspapers. The recipient of the Free Press' Golden Keystone and Silver Keystone awards, Guest was also honored by a Detroit school and a Boys Club of Detroit building, which carry his name. As a civic leader, he received numerous awards, including honorary degrees from Wayne State University in 1936 and Michigan.
Wikipedia has some information on Clear Channel stations here (click), including a list of them. Many of these stations go way beck to be beginning of the history of radio braodcasting. I had an old Crosley radio that had the Clear Channel stations marked. When I was about ten, I spent many late-night hours listening to these stations and making a list of all the stations I found. WABC (click) has some great information about its history as a Clear Channel station. Don't confuse "Clear Channel stations" with "Clear Channel Communications", the largest radio company operating in the United States, based in San Antonio, Texas.
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