This holy night in open forum
Miss McIntosh, who handles Files,
Has lost one shoe and her decorum.
Stately, the frozen chairman smiles
On Media, desperately vocal.
Credit, though they have lost their hopes
Of edging toward an early Local,
Finger their bonus envelopes.
The glassy boys, the bursting girls
Of Copy, start a Conga clatter
To a swung carol. Limply curls
The final sandwich on the platter.
Till hark! a herald Messenger
(Room 414) lifts loudly up
His quavering tenor. Salesmen stir
Libation for his Lily cup.
“Noel,” he pipes, “Noel, Noel.”
Some wag beats tempo with a ruler.
And the plump blonde from Personnel
Is sick behind the water cooler.
Phyllis McGinley was famous for her light verse and celebration of suburban, middle class America. She published several books of poetry, including On the Contrary (1934), One More Manhattan (1937), Husbands Are Difficult (1941), Stones from Glass Houses (1946), and Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades (1960), which won a Pulitzer Prize. In his introduction to Times Three, W.H. Auden praised McGinley’s mastery of rhyme and her accessible yet distinctive voice, writing, “I start a sentence: ‘The poetry of Phyllis McGinley is . . .,’ and there I stick, for all I wish to say is ‘ . . . is the poetry of Phyllis McGinley.’”
1 Comment
Thank you for sharing, Luke! I was helping to clean out my in-laws’ attic after my mother-in-law passed…a yellowing slip of paper fell out of an old copy of, “Housewives’ Guide to Antiques”…it was a typed poem by Phyllis McGinley titled “Don’t Shake the Bottle, Shake Your Mother-in-Law”. Having never come across her poetry, I was spellbound by her clever use of verse! I came across your site while spending a guilty (yet extremely enjoyable) morning online to find out more about Ms. McGinley. Thanks again!!