Accentuate The Positive

In today’s Accentuate the Positive is the story of a young boy who seemingly had nothing going for him except determination, tenacity, and raw talent.

Eddie Guest was born in Birmingham England in 1881. His family moved to Michigan when he was a young child. He was hired by Detroit Free Press at the age of 13 as an office boy and stayed on for 60 years. He quickly became a cub reporter, working the labor beat and the waterfront beat.

By the time he should have graduated from high school, he, instead, had developed a reputation as a scrappy reporter in a competitive town. By 1898, this 17-year-old high school drop-out was writing literary verse. He was given a weekly column, and then a daily column.

By 1908, he had developed his own unique style; nearly all of his writing was in meter and rhyme and his readers loved it. His column was soon syndicated in over 300 newspapers and he became known as "The Poet of the People." His popularity led to one of early radio’s longest-running radio shows, appearances on television, in Hollywood, and in banquet halls and meeting rooms from coast to coast.

Guest followed a clear and simple formula to journalistic success: "I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them."

Edgar A. Guest died in 1959. Forty-seven years after his death, he still has fans all over the world. He is certainly my favorite poet. I love the musicality of his verses and collect his books (thanks to EBay).I have also committed some of his poems to memory.

Here is one of my favorites:

It Couldn't Be Done
Edgar A. Guest

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied.
That "maybe it couldn't,"
but he would be one.
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you,
one by one, the dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."
Philippians 4:13