{"id":60121,"date":"2024-04-13T14:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=60121"},"modified":"2024-04-15T10:21:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T14:21:33","slug":"genesis-of-a-poem-all-that-would-ever-after-not-be-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2024\/04\/genesis-of-a-poem-all-that-would-ever-after-not-be-said.html","title":{"rendered":"Genesis of a Poem<\/em><\/font>
All That Would Ever After Not Be Said<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 1952, when the late Gabe Pressman<\/a> (dean of New York City’s local TV press corps<\/a>) was a young staff writer at the New York World-Telegram & The Sun<\/a>, he came across a story tipped to him by a woman from Montreal who’d taken a cab ride in midtown Manhattan. This was the human-interest feature he wrote up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click the image to enlarge:<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
‘A man isn’t made of stone.’<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is a poem I wrote alluding to Pressman’s story. It was included in a collection of my “deformed sonnets,” All That Would Ever After Not Be Said<\/a><\/em> (2021), and again in Shadow Words<\/a><\/em> (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click the image to enlarge<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Pages 56-57 of All That Would Ever After Not Be Said<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. Collage by Norman O. Mustill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Pressman didn’t know was that the cabbie didn’t want to be named because he was avoiding bill collectors at the time. I know because, as the poem says, that cabbie was my Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how could he afford to buy a Broadway ticket to “Guys and Dolls”<\/a> for that grateful out-of-towner? He didn’t have to buy it. He knew all kinds of theater people, including publicists, producers, and box-office hands. He must have arranged a comp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1952, when the late Gabe Pressman (dean of New York City’s local TV press corps) was a young staff writer at the New York World-Telegram & The Sun, he came across a story tipped to him by a woman from Montreal who’d taken a cab ride in midtown Manhattan. This was the human-interest feature he wrote up. And this is the poem it generated many decades later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":60119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,26,18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-60121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-books","9":"category-literature","10":"category-main","11":"category-news","12":"category-political-culture","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/ANGEL-CABBIE-NY-World-Telegram-Sun-1952-bdr-560.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fDH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60121"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60244,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60121\/revisions\/60244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}