BY JOELLEN COLLINS
For a required college essay, I read an astounding document, Edgar Allen Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition.” I could envision my high school English teacher, Theodosia Wilkinson, a tiny, immaculate little lady with chignoned white hair, and her artistic renditions of Poe’s poems like “The Bells.” The varied tones of bells rang from her exquisite voice. She exhibited energy and a love of poetry seldom excelled even in my graduate school professors.
When I later encountered Poe’s criticism, I could appreciate the intense care with which he constructed his poetry. The construction of “The Raven,” as expounded in the cited essay, was complex, powered by an unusual and daring imagination.
Over the years I have enjoyed, when appropriate, sharing with the mothers of new babies that Poe thought the letter “L” evinced a positive response in a reader. His heroines’ names with l’s in them — the lost Lenore, Ulalume, Annabelle Lee, Helen — were names designed to stimulate emotions. Recently, a new grandmother and I talked about the beauty of lullabies (note the “l”s) and missing singing them and cuddling as we had with our own babies.
Last week, I sadly noted the passing of one of my favorite entertainers of all time, Harry Belafonte, a human not only of remarkable talent but of great compassion and wisdom. I thought, ironically, about three singers whom I was able to hear as a teenager in Southern California, and, quite suddenly, the mellifluous tones (including “l”s) of their names resonated: Belafonte, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald. I had a few moments of gratitude for my youth in a time when these artists flourished.
I can unashamedly don rose-colored glasses to remember the artists who shaped me, even in my more conservative generation. I heard all three of these singers while sitting down fairly close to them in The Greek Theatre. That venue was just THERE for us: inexpensive, cozy, and located at the edge of Griffith Park, the audience enjoying balmy summer evenings before the influx of population and smog.
When I felt romantic at my high school dances, held in our self-decorated gyms, I could recall the expression on Cole’s face as he reminded me of the thought of young love. Even though those sweet visions weren’t necessarily fulfilled in my grown-up life, I still feel a warmth of tenderness and comfort when I listen to those artists. Lucky me, to have been a teenager of that time, with a loving family, and loyal and funny friends who piled into my old heap of a car to drive to Hollywood in our best clothes to see the latest movies at the Pantages or the Egyptian or Grauman’s Chinese theaters. In spite of the tensions in the outside world, we maintained an innocence which I treasure… schools and churches were sanctuaries, not killing fields, and we could believe, even if only for a few years, of the sweetness of life that I imagined lay before me.
Lovely lullabies to those long-ago artists.