J.Q. Faulk
Being a Lansing boy I am always curious to see how other people view my city, especially in print. Usually they peppered their words with colorful images like: "sty," "furuncle," "gritty," and "this once floundering industrial town now fallen on harder times." Indeed.
My generation of poets cannot rhyme very well it seems and thus there appears to be a certain (how can I call it?) hesitation in writing epic couplets and odes to their cities or states as people did for fun before the invention of irony. This might be a shame if the homespun verse that resulted weren't so terribly funny. For example, my mother recently sent me a copy of this ode to Michigan a friend of hers found on eBay. Written over a hundred years ago in that quaint way that all pre-20th Century book titles seemed to be crafted; quick! sum up every idea your book might hold in a single run-on sentence. It simply reads: A Poem on Michigan: giving a statement, in part, of its Resources, Products, Scenery, Natural Advantages; Also Industries of the Larger Cities by J.Q. Faulk, East Cohoctah, Michigan, 1900.
I am not sure who J.Q. Faulk of East Cohoctah, Michigan, was, but I hope he lived a good life and sent copies of this poem to all his grandchildren at the holidays, because it, along with other Michigan related poems like "I'm a Michigan Man" and "O, Michigan, my Michigan," just help illustrate the point that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
For example, even though the book has a rabid-looking illustration of a wolverine on it, this is what Mr. Faulk says of our state beastie:
As for wolverine in this state,
There has none been seen here of late;
Though perhaps in an earlier day,
There were many near Keweenaw Bay.
True. True. Mr. Faulk goes on some ten pages of verse praising not just our state and its mitten shaped roundness, but many of the cities we have as well. Flint, Jackson, Grand Rapids, Detroit and even Ann Arbor all get their praises sung. Lansing, however, is the one city he can't think much to say about (typical). Of the mere three stanzas, the first two read as follows:
LANSING
Lansing, Well, the most we can relate
It is the Capitol of the state,
Though it is an near all round,
Manufacturing town.And has schools of reform and scientific knowledge,
And is adjacent to the Agricultural College;
Where is conducted an experiment station,
To promote the interests of cultivation.
Lansing, well, if this is typical of poetry people have considered over the years of making our Offical State Poem (and thus to have an Offical State Poet), all I can do is thank the gods we go poem-less.