A Heap O' Livin'

I read parts of a book of poems called A Heap O' Livin' by Edgar Guest.  It is copyright 1916.  It's hard for me to read a book of poems from begining to end - short little span of attention I guess - so I didn't.   In the back there was an index of first lines so if one caught my attention I went to the the poem and read it.

When I picked up the book I was just looking for something to read.  I didn't know who Edgar Guest was, and I no idea that he was a very prolific & popular poem writer from the early to mid 20th century. 

William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Samuel Coleridge, Edgar Guest. 

"One of these poets is not like the others, one of these poets just doesn't belong".

Willam, Walt, Samuel & Co. will not have their literary standing challenged by Edgar.  But it wasn't a bad collection.  They were poems about dogs, relationships, children, parents, religion, morals, attitudes, back seat driving, buying a house, childhood friendships, the responsibilities of adulthood, all with meters and beats and rhyming schemes. They were sentimental and many had a little humor in them. The whole collection amounts to his opinion of life as he knew it in 1916.  That's pretty significant.