Longing to Share What I'm Feeling: Poetry, Verse, and Worse – a Father-Son Tradition

By Harry S. Bodin and Arthur M. Bodin

Expression of feelings by men was not taboo in my family. Indeed, it was expected of all adult males at the celebrations of special occasions—very plentiful since my mother had eight brothers.

I became earnest about versifying when my father suggested I write a poem about how I was coping with being jilted by a girlfriend. I did so that night and was pleased with the result, as well as emotionally soothed.

My father had organized his poetic output into nine appropriately named files titled Chapters and Verse and one more labeled Not for Publication. That hint was the impetus for this book.

“Wonderful to see a father and son both exploring the medium of poetry to celebrate special occasions. This collection of their verse, culled from decades of their creative output, includes a wide variety of poetic forms, from the limerick to the sonnet, as father and son play with meter, rhythm, sound, rhyming patterns, and even other languages” (Leslie J. Freeman, family friend). Expression of feelings by men was not taboo in my family. Indeed, it was expected of all adult males at the celebrations of special occasions—very plentiful since my mother had eight brothers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796011418

Harry S. Bodin

Harry S.Bodin, J.D., 1899-1983 -Of counsel, Hofheimer, Gartler, Gottlieb & Gross -Admitted to bar, 1924, New York; 1973, U.S. Supreme Court -Preparatory education: Columbia University (A.B., 1921; J.D., 1923) -Editor and Co-author, Trial Technique Library, 1946-1975 and Civil Litigation and Trial Techniques, 1976, Practising Law Institute -Lecturer in Law, Columbia University Law School, 1954-1955 -Associate Editor, Law Notes, American Bar Association, 1964-1980 -Member: The Association of the Bar of the City of New York; New York State Bar Association (Member, Committee on Professional Ethics, 1977-1981); and American Bar Association (Advocacy and Professional Skills Committee, 1977—, Vice Chairman, 1978—; American Judicature Society Arthur M. Bodin, Ph.D., ABPP -President, California Psychological Association (1976) and the Family Psychology Division, American Psychological Association (1981) -Senior Research Fellow and twice Board President, Mental Research Institute; independent practice (1967–2016) -Developed the Relationship Conflict Inventory (RCI) and the Teasing and Bullying Survey (TABS) -Board Certified by ABPP in Clinical, in Forensic, and in Couple and Family Psychology -Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF School of Medicine (1988–2006) -APA Council of Representatives, six terms (fourteen years in the time from 1981–2001) -APA Publications and Communications Board (1987–1992) -Extensive publications and editorial work, largely in family psychology -Public member, Family Law Advisory Commission, State Bar of California’s Board of Legal Specialization (2003–2006) -Three national awards in family therapy and family psychology

Book preview

Longing to Share What I’m Feeling:

Poetry, Verse, and Worse —

A Father-Son Tradition

Harry S. Bodin, J.D.

Arthur M. Bodin, Ph.D., ABPP

Copyright © 2019 by Arthur Bodin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Rev. date: 05/01/2019

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CONTENTS

Chapter and Verse

Harry S. Bodin, J.D.

1 Campus Cynicism

2 Romance and Reveries

3 Despair and Disillusion

4 Romance Revived

5 Love Songs to My Wife

6 Birthdays and Anniversaries

7 Special Occasions

8 Shadows and Smiles

9 Verses for Friends and Grandchildren

Notebook of Verse

Arthur M. Bodin, Ph.D., ABPP

1 Limericks and Ditties

2 Love, Loss, and Longing

3 Reflections

Author’s Brief Biographies

Harry S.Bodin, J.D., 1899-1983

Arthur M. Bodin, Ph.D., ABPP

PREFACE

Expression of feelings by men was not taboo in my family. Indeed, it was encouraged and, in fact, expected of all adult males at the celebrations of special occasions such as fiftieth birthdays and twenty-fifth wedding anniversaries on my mother’s side of the family. These parties were frequent since my mother had eight brothers.

Each brother and my father would stand in turn and read some verse he had composed for the event. The highlight of the evening would come when the turn arrived for the group’s worst versifier. His wife on one side and his grown daughter on the other would tug frantically at his jacket sleeves, pleading, Please sit down. You’ll only embarrass yourself! He would brush them off, rise with determination, and reply with great dignity, even gravitas, No. I’m going to read what I have written. He would do so, always to great applause.

In high school, I started writing silly little limericks and ditties. These efforts became more serious when my father suggested I start dealing with my feelings by using them as a springboard for creating poetry. That evening, eight lines flowed from me in response to the pain and despair of having been jilted. This was the first of many efforts I grouped under the heading Love, Loss, and Longing.

When my father died in 1983, he left behind his lifetime of poetic efforts—some in typed form and others in his beautiful cursive. He had organized these into nine files—each with a chapter named descriptively. I must confess that I had never read these until I was two years older than he had been the year he died. I also found a file titled Not for Publication. I got the hint. It was a short step from that idea to its extension of including my own lifetime production. I eventually decided to call our combined efforts Longing to Share What I’m Feeling: Poetry, Verse, and Worse—A Father-Son Tradition. I was later surprised to discover that my father had used the words verse and worse in the title of one of his poems. Like father, like son; family tradition indeed!

Arthur M. Bodin, Ph.D., ABPP, 2018

To my wife, Rose Bodin

___________________________________

Moi a Toi

Longtemps, helas,

D’ecrire ici

Une dedicace

J’avais envie.

Enfin je l’ose,

Et la voici:

A ma belle Rose,

Ma fleur, m’amie.

Phantom Ships

Her cheeks, he said, "are roses red

Upon a fragrant field.

Her ruby lips are magic ships

That precious treasure yield."

But when to kiss the luring miss?

The blockhead took a notion.

He found her lips were "painted ships

Upon a painted ocean."

A Catskill Mountain Farmer to His Boarders

Behold the cow whose milk you quaff

Without or else within your tea!

This bovine is (now please don’t laugh)

As modern as a cow can be.

We sterilize the seeds we sow

Within the sulfurated ground,

And when we see the pure grass grow,

We send this modern cow around.

The grass she chews is pure as silk!

Then gaze, my friends, with gloating eyes

Upon a modern cow whose milk

We do not need to pasteurize.

To Helen

(Please forgive me, Edgar Allan Poe.)

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Remindful of the brilliant paint

And pomp of Renaissance in art,

And sometimes there is a degree

Of futurism in your face,

Suggestive of far deeper lines

Beneath the dainty pencil touch

At each precise strategic place.

Once, while traveling in Nice,

I met a toothless dog named Yore,

Who, conscious that he couldn’t bite,

Would bark as loud as any four.

"Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of Yore."

Verse or Worse?

Of course I can pardon the rhymer

Who writes in iambic pentameter;

Friend Longfellow is an old-timer

Who is pleased with his dactyl hexameter.

I find some excuse for the writer

Who prattles of roses and violets

Or sings in a vein that is lighter

Of flappers in frivolous triolets.

Today for some rhythm, I’m grateful;

For either a fast or a slow meter

Is better than stuff of the hateful

Vers-librists, who revel in no meter.

TALES TOLD BY AN IDIOT

Stuffed Goose

There was a young student from Maine

Who studied to fill up his brain;

He filled every nook

Till his brain was a book,

And who heard of a book with a brain?

Shine, Please!

A pedantic professor quite droll

Once played a remarkable role;

This prof of Manhattan,

Though dullest in Latin,

Thought Latin would