Jesse Helms is dead. He is, as somewhere in the ether a greater mind than his may be noting with some glee , consigned to “the dust bin of history.” And I, a native North Carolinian, say with the same sense of satisfaction Montressor had after walling his enemy Fortunato inside the catacombs, “in pace requiescat.”
But I owe Jesse Helms a debt of the literary variety – and today I repay it.
In the autumn of 1966 I was a 14 year old 9th grader. I was besotted with The Beatles and played my guitar at least 3 hours a night. I had been a straight “A” student throughout my academic career, but that was slipping away as I focused on the gospel of John and Paul with the zeal of the true believer. My parents grumbled, lectured, punished, and despaired. To them I was the lost lamb; to myself I was the disciple of a new way….
I was passing the TV one evening on the way to my room to play “that goddamned guitar” (as my father termed my old Silvertone acoustic) when I saw the first reports. That blustering, lisping, guy who hated everything, Jesse Helms, whose WRAL, Channel 5, Raleigh, editorials occasionally ran on WFMY, Channel 2, Greensboro, had gotten a professor at UNC fired for teaching his students a poem.
That’s not the correct story, of course, but accuracy was not so important to me in 1966. I was more into outrage – especially if I could be a cause of it.
From the next day’s Greensboro Daily News I gathered the important piece of information I had missed in my casual notice of the TV report the previous evening – the name of the poem: “To His Coy Mistress” by a guy named Andrew Marvell. I found the poem in the school library after school the next day. It was slow going for a 14 year old, even on in the Academically Talented (AT) English class who’d been reading the likes of H.D., Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, and Vachel Lindsay. I knew from the newspaper that the poem was supposed to be about sex, and I kind of got that, though Marvell, like all those poetry guys, had buried it in a lot of over clever language. But it had all this what seemed to me to be really dark stuff about death in the middle of it:
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying, near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
It seemed to me both then and now that the best way into a girl’s panties might not be to talk about how she was going to die and turn to dust. But it was a great poem, and I knew it even at 14.
I asked about it a couple of days later in my English class. My teacher, Mrs. Ragan, God bless her, confirmed both of my conclusions – “To His Coy Mistress” is a great poem and Jesse Helms was wrong to attack a college instructor for teaching it to students.
My father had given me what I call the “Aunt Mimi lecture” (Mimi was John Lennon’s beloved aunt who reared him and whose admonition to john goes as follows: “The guitar’s alright as a hobby, John, but you’ll never make a living at it.”). He warned me that I’d better have a back up plan in case becoming “another Beatle” didn’t work out. I decided if the Beatle thing didn’t happen that I’d become an English professor (and maybe a writer) – and that I’d teach “To His Coy Mistress” every chance I got.
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And here we are decades later. I’ve had a sort of career as a Beatle. And I’ve had a sort of career as an English professor and writer of novels. And I’ve taught “To His Coy Mistress” every chance I’ve gotten. Though sadly, Jesse Helms never saw fit to go after me as I hoped he might when I chose my career paths in 1966.
Still, in a weird way, Jesse Helms gave me my literary career. And I’ve owed him for that.
Now my debt is paid.
In pace requiescat.
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I never realized that I owed my familiarity with the poem, even indirectly, to that hateful bastard.
If I recall correctly, Marvel wasn’t entirely unacquainted with Puritans was he?
Ha! Score another one for the civilizing influence of the high school English teacher… and the power of sex to vanquish the prurient Puritans obsessed with controlling everyone else’s hearts and minds.
Good one, Mr. Beatle Booth.
Marvell, as you probably remember, was John Milton’s under-secretary when Milton was Latin Secretary (think Secretary of State) for Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Protectorate. Marvell was a good Puritan boy himself – just of a more enlightened sort that his 20th century critic….
Euphrosyne: Mrs. Ragan was and is a great teacher. And having spent some years as a H.S. English teacher myself before fleeing to the posh life in the university, I got nothing but respect for those who work in our school systems….
Actually that poem rightly conveys the message that time and tide waits for none.
It has been interesting and informative reading up on J H. In many ways he was a most unpleasant person. I was surprised to learn that Bono sought him out.
1966 was a good year for me…I opened my eyes for the first time in the Autumn.
Bono sought Jesse out for the rawest of political reasons. Helms was in a position to do something so Bono held his nose on behalf of a cause.
They say politics make for strange bedfellows, and this was arguably the strangest pairing in history. I admire Bono’s … willpower. Not sure I could have suppressed the urge to jump the bastard and choke him to death.
Never read that Marvell poem. Can’t believe how droll he is. But, no, it’s not the best approach to a pick-up.
Also, like “Mary Laine.”
Russ:
1) You owe yourself the pleasure of the full Marvell poem. It’s readily available. Just Google.
2) Thanks for the kind words about “Mary Laine.” You can download it free….
How great to be “connected” still with one of my very favorite students ever! Jesse did one great something…he made YOU want to be an English teacher! The reason you were such a scholar, Jim, is that you went to the library on your own to look up a poem mentioned in a newspaper! You used the library because you wanted to learn; and you asked your teacher questions…students like you made my life challenging and fun! Forty-two years as an English teacher with the honor of working with gifted students was a wonderful career. I feel blessed and thankful every day for the years I spent at Morehead High School. Thank you always for feeding my ego…but most especially for remembering years later what I taught you. Didn’t we love studying Edgar Allan Poe, mythology, Shakespeare, and all those great poets? My 9th Graders were always special to me because I had virgin soil in which to plant the seeds of learning! Most of my career I taught sophisticated Advanced Placement 11th and 12th graders who had to make 4’s and 5’s on the AP Exam. Back in the 70’s with my brilliant group who stayed with me for four years of high school…now that was real teaching! Thank you for being a part of it and for loving me back!