I was in a thrift store today looking over some shelves of used paperbacks when a bright yellow spine caught my eye. I grabbed the book immediately, of course, recognizing it as a Gold Medal. But it turned out not to be what I expected. I didn't even know this one existed. Now, I'm not exactly a poetry-lovin' kind of guy, but . . . it's a Gold Medal. I couldn't leave it there. Anyway, it looks like a pretty good collection, heavy on the classics like Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, and the like. What the heck, it was only 40 cents. And I can't help but wonder . . . what's that dame really got in mind? Why's she leading that poor sucker down that country lane? Is there a dead body at the end of it, or a fortune in loot from an armored car robbery? Is this really a lost Charles Williams novel, POETRY GIRL? Hey, it is a Gold Medal, after all.
The Adventures of Sherlocko (1911)
1 hour ago
8 comments:
Poetry Girl! Oh, if only it existed! James, I think you might have to write that one and re-use this same cover.
Is it just me, or is that a mushroom cloud they are walking towards?
James,
Are you sure it's HER leading HIM? I just finsihed reading IN A LONELY PLACE, and though it wasn't a GM, and though it's daytime on your book's cover, it brought to mind Dix Steele--gentlemanly escorting a young lady to her final destination.
In the sprit of high-brow verse, your post also just happened to bring a little ditty to mind:
"One day at the local book shoppe,
James spotted a used GM copy.
He grumbled, 'Oh shoot!'
Finding no tough galoot.
But instead just some crap about poppies."
By the way, see any Orrie's?
B.Ritt
Yes, It looks like he's leading her--the more likely scenario.
A twist, a moll, a piece of fluff--
This dame thought she was pretty tough:
"Since noir is poetry of the street,
Tell my tale in metered feet."
Thus, Gold Medal called her bluff.
I like the poems!
The guy just thinks he's leading the girl down the lane. Little does he know what he's really in for.
And nope, no Orries. Picked up some Mike Shayne novels, though, including a few I haven't read.
The test of a used poetry book is: Where does it fall open? What was the go-to poem for the previous owner?
Most of the oddball GMs are in the first 200 books (GM's "shakedown cruise," as it were), like the guide to Social Security by Sidney Margolius and the corporate autobiography by one of Henry Ford's executives (WE NEVER CALLED HIM HENRY). There's also a Red Seal that's a collection of American Ballads. Later, during the early 1960s, Gold Medal started broadening its range of titles (alas!) including books on Kennedy and MacArthur and baseball stats and the like.
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