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M2ThaL t1_iy97l3x wrote

Reply to comment by otterdroppings in TIL Robert W. Service sent his poems to his father to be printed and given as gifts to friends. Service received back an offer of royalties for publication, the printers had loved the poems, The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses was an immediate success and Service quit his bank job the next year. by jamescookenotthatone

Story time. Back in the late '70s my dad worked on the road as a laboratory instrument repairman covering parts of four states. He had a CB in the car because, no cell phones. One night he got tired of hearing the truckers cursing on the CB so he jumped on and recited the entirety of The Cremation of Sam Mcgee. When he got off there were a few seconds of stunned silence followed by truckers cursing him for taking up the channel that long with a poem. Until another guy jumped on. It turned out this guy had a doctorate in English literature and had written his thesis on the works of Robert W Service. You find all kinds of folks on the CB at night deep down in Georgia.

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otterdroppings t1_iy9k2rr wrote

Rather less savoury addition.... I got into RWS as a kid: one of his collected poems was in my Dads library, we didn't have a TV (we didn't have a lot of money, period - but I did have access to a lot of books) and something about the rhythm, the cadence of his poetry really did it for me.

Came as a bit of a shock in my teenage years to discover the pastiche versions, especially 'Eskimo Nell'...

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