19543 - Robert Service: The “Bard of the Yukon”
Course Overview
Dismissed by devotees of “high brow” literature, Robert Service is disdained as a “people’s poet.” Printers recited his ballads still wet with ink as they came off the presses. Book salesmen couldn’t keep them in stock although his writing was considered “comically crude.” Service’s minister chastised him for the wickedness of his first book of verse. Properly chagrined, Service went right on signing autographs and collecting royalties equal to $2.7 million today. He wrote verse about cowboys, gold miners, ambulance drivers, and Bohemians in Paris’s Latin Quarter – as well as thriller novels that would be made into silent movies and talkies. He even appeared in one along with Marlene Dietrich.
If serious poetry is a “vale of tears,” Service hands you a hankie and a guffaw. What else would you expect from a poem entitled “the Battle of the Bulge”? Brave souls fighting in an Allied offensive? No, brave souls fighting middle-aged spread. “No more will sausage, bacon, eggs provide my breakfast fare . . . Let bran and cottage cheese suffice my gastronomic needs, And lettuce be my ally in the Battle of the Bulge.”
Join us for a poet considered “low brow” and loved for it.
Additional Information
Proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test is no longer required for entry. Masks are recommended.
A current OLLI Membership is required to register for this course, please click here to add to your cart. Please purchase one membership per account.
This class is eligible for UNM Tuition Remission under Personal Enrichment.