<\/p>\n
Since Edna St. Vincent Millay Maine has had many rhymesters, but few real poets. One who deserves to be called a true poet is John Hankins, retired chairman of the Department of English at the University of Maine in Orono.<\/p>\n
John Erskine Hankins is a native of South Carolina, who had the good sense to marry a Maine girl. When he was a graduate student at Yale, Hankins met Nellie Pottle, who was also doing graduate work there. She is a sister of Dr. Frederick Pottle, retired Sterling Professor of English at Yale. Like her husband, Mrs. Hankins holds an earned doctor’s degree.<\/p>\n
After several years in the English Department at the University of Kansas, Dr. Hankins accepted a call to the chairmanship of the English Department at Orono, where Mrs. Hankins also taught. Since retirement in 1970, they have made their home on a farm at Scribner Hill in East Otisfield, a farm in Mrs. Hankins’ family for more than a century. Dr. Hankins latest publication came from the press last month. It has the title MAINE ALBUM and contains delightful poems about Maine people and Maine folkways. Many have their locale in the region around Scribner Hill.<\/p>\n
Some of the poems are in rhyme, others in blank verse. All reveal a deep love of Maine. Although an adopted son, Dr. Hankins has become a devoted Maine-iac.<\/p>\n
Some of the poem titles themselves disclose the homey subjects with which they deal: “Apples”, “The Vegetable Garden”, “Fiddleheads”, “Rural Graveyards”. All show the author’s deep understanding and compassion; his distaste for dogmatic, arrogant assurance; his tolerance of the eccentric; his inherent love of his fellow men.<\/p>\n
A number of the poems deal with persons, not great figures of commerce or statesmanship, but simple, country folk who often possess a high degree of wisdom. One poem says “Bill was our town historian, wrote the best of histories and published it himself. His father fought at Gettysburg; so Bill gave the town a veteran’s statue, the pride of our local cemetery. Lest the family name die out, his will left a legacy to every male child whose middle name was Spurr.”<\/p>\n
Here’s another:
\n“Jim learned he had to pay an income tax.
\nExemption was six hundred.
\nHe earned about a thousand.
\nBaffled and hurt, he struggled with the form, then sought advice.
\nThereafter Jim would earn $600, then stop, careful not to collect one cent more.
\nIt was a boon when exemption rose to $750.”<\/p>\n
One more:
\n“Why, Bertie, what is that? Oh, that’s may spanking machine. And don’t tell the family about it. They think I’m just a fool, but I know what is good for me. Sometimes I’m full of mischief and need a good spanking. Then Bertie bent to turn the wheel, which made a larger wheel revolve more slowly. Each strap in turn gave vigorous whacks to Bertie’s butt; fast turning gave more whacks. Machine-made spankings were his specialty.”<\/p>\n
Here’s a gem from the poem “Vegetable Garden”:
\n“Flowers nourish the soil, vegetables the body.
\nMost gardeners plant both.
\nThe floral beauty is best enjoyed with a well-filled stomach.”<\/p>\n
One poem extols the lowly potato. “The lowly spud has eyes but cannot see, just as the corn has ears but cannot hear. Despite that handicap, potatoes feed a great part of the human race. Best seed is grown by farmers up in Northern Maine.”<\/p>\n
So far I have quoted only from the poems in blank verse but Hankins is equally skilled at rhyming verses. Listen to this on “Boundaries”:<\/p>\n
“My fields have boundaries of stone,
\nLong rows of rocks together thrown,
\nIn clearing of each separate field
\nIn order to increase the yield.
\nThey mark in a convenient way
\nThe orchards, pastures, fields of hay,
\nDivide the cattle from the corn
\nAnd guide their footsteps toward the barn.<\/p>\n
“The heart has boundaries of its own
\nIt shouts away with walls of stone
\nAbusive shouts, insulting sneers,
\nIntrusive doubts, heart-rending fears.
\nIt opens wide for love of life,
\nOf children, parents, husband, wife,
\nAnd friends, but keeps its inmost shrine
\nFor access to the love divine.”<\/p>\n
Here is a stanza from the poem called “Love”:
\n“Love is a universal force
\nThat guides each planet on its course,
\nHolds every comet in its place
\nTraversing inter-stellar space;
\nBrings spring-time flowers from the sod,
\nDraws man to man, and men to God.”<\/p>\n
A landmark in East Otisfield is the venerable Bell Hill church, built more than a century and a half ago. In it Dr. and Mrs. Hankins were married, and in it I spoke one summer Sunday afternoon. Hankins honors the old
\nchurch with these lines:<\/p>\n
“The ancient, noble structure crowns Bell Hill,
\nSplendid in green shutters and white paint,
\nOverlooking the countryside for miles.
\nFrom its belfry seven lakes were visible
\nTill tree growth in old fields cut off the view.
\nHere came the early settlers, seeking heights
\nWhere corn would not succumb to early frosts
\nHere built their homes, and in the midst their church.<\/p>\n
Bell Hill stands empty now, but well preserved
\nAs a historic shrine. One day each year
\nTownsmen and visitors come to worship God,
\nTo honor memories of those early ones,
\nTo pray again as their forefathers prayed.<\/p>\n
Good poetry contains memorable expressions. One of Robert Coffin’s best lines is “Cows in pasture fading into bells.” Here are a few of John Hankins’ memorable lines: “Maine stretches rocky fingers toward the sea”; “Tombstones are history petrified”; “Remembering the agony and glory of the past”; and “A farmboy knows that barnyard leads to death”.<\/p>\n
A copy of John Hankins’ MAINE ALBUM should be in every Maine home, and many former Maine residents, now expatriates, will want it. If you cannot get a copy at a nearby bookstore, you can obtain one from John E. Hankins, RFD, Oxford, Maine.<\/p>\n
Now let us turn to a bit of Kennebec history that has long troubled investigators. In the middle of the 17th century the firm of Clark and Lake obtained rights from the Plymouth Colony, owners of a vast tract of land fifteen miles on each side of the Kennebec River from Merrymeeting Bay to Skowhegan Falls; and with these rights got others farther down the river. Those rights enabled the partners to enter into the Indian fur trade
\nin a big way. They set up trading posts near the mouth of the river, and farther up the stream at various points, two of them as far up as Cushnoc and Ticonic, the old names for Augusta and Waterville. Historians to this day do not know exactly where those posts were situated. The one at Augusta may have been on the later site of Fort Western, and Ticonic may have been where Fort Halifax was later built. But some authorities think that both were farther upstream, in each case above the falls.<\/p>\n
Recently Ted Bradstreet has led a group of University of Maine archeologists in excavations at the lowest of those posts, called Nehumkeag. The diggings have been at Argy’s Point. Though they have not yet revealed conclusive evidence, Bradstreet believes he has found the place where Clark and Lake set up their southernmost trading post. Uncovered have been piles of daubing. Daubing was a substance in much use for house construction in the 17th century. It was made from clay, straw and wood ashes. With those heaps have been found shards of clay pipes, definitely of the 17th century.<\/p>\n
The Nehumkeag trading post had a short life, for it was wiped out by King Philip’s War in 1675, that also destroyed most white settlements east of the Piscataqua. On the place in 1775 Thomas Argy had a shipyard, where, on orders from Col. Colburn at Pittston, he built some of the bateaux that Arnold used on his expedition to Quebec. Then it became a farm until the middle of the 19th century, when it was covered by huge ice houses, from which James Barker shipped thousands of tons of Kennebec ice down the coast and to some points across the seas. After the-decline of the ice industry, the place was abandoned until Bradstreet started his excavations there.<\/p>\n
Now, as a final touch to this broadcast, let us refer to rust, the curse of Maine woods. On the subject I offer this bit of hexameter, adapted from Longfellow’s “Evangeline”:<\/p>\n
Rust is the forest’s prime evil,
\nDestroying the pines and the hemlock;
\nBut dusting and spraying the forest
\nMay be cure that is worse than disease.
\nPerhaps the only solution is for
\nMaine folks to kneel in grand pray.<\/p>\n
And with that terrible bit of verse, which is by no means poetry, we say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year:1983<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1335, Broadcast on January 9, 1983<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35322,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}