POETS Day! WM Praed and an Irishman

ChatGPT: Write a POETS Day intro

“As the clock edges toward five, a palpable excitement begins to ripple through the office—a shared anticipation, a collective sigh of relief. It’s POETS Day, and the air hums with the promise of freedom, the weekend beckoning like a long-lost friend.

The term itself, a cheeky acronym for ‘Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ captures a spirit that runs deep in the hearts of workers everywhere. It’s not just a day; it’s a ritual, an unspoken agreement that after a week of deadlines and meetings, the horizon holds something sweeter.

In those final moments before the weekend unfolds, the chatter becomes lighter, laughter echoes a little louder, and the mundane tasks feel somehow more bearable. It’s a celebration of the ordinary, a reminder that amidst the grind, there exists the potential for spontaneity and joy. As the minutes tick down, the office transforms into a launchpad for adventures, big or small, that await just beyond the door. Here’s to the spirit of POETS Day, a nod to resilience and the joy of simply being alive.”

Close enough.

***

I got engaged over Christmas of 2001.  In a welcome flutter of sentimentality, my parents decided they wanted one last trip with a single me. We took off for Ireland a few months later, just the three of us. As much as I love my brother and sister, it was special – a hated word when used in regard to anything bonding-ish so trust that I looked for an alternative but nothing else worked quite as well – just the three of us. We hadn’t been a trio since I was three, living with them in married student housing and then briefly in Birmingham until a sister came along and spoiled everything. She was loud to begin with and later took up the trumpet.

We were in Dublin the first weekend of May. Stereotypes and a Pogues song informed us that the Irish were inveterate gamblers with a weakness for the ponies so we thought it’d be fun to find a late night bar to watch the Kentucky Derby. It was hard to find a place that would be open. The race is usually run around six central and Ireland’s seven hours behind daylight savings because of the metric system. Most pubs seemed to close around ten or eleven. I figured someone would stay open for the Derby – and it was an event there. I’m not projecting provincial tastes abroad; most of the barmen we spoke to had plans to watch with friends but didn’t know of any businesses extending hours for it. I know in England there are laws about pubs closing at a certain time so munitions workers can’t get drunk but very loud thumping bass clubs get a pass till the wee hours. There may be an Irish counterpart. I’ve never figured it out.

A few blocks off of Merrion Square where the Oscar Wilde statue reclines, we found a tiny place; dark, red leathered, and clinky quiet but open and planning on showing the race. The place was seating but not standing full when we came back around midnight. The bartender remembered dad and I from our afternoon inquiries and some polite fellow wearing a parka, despite the season, offered mom his chair. I want to say dad thanked him with a round.

It was a good time talking with people guessing at our accents and making fun of our correctly named football. Everybody mustered enthusiasm for preliminary races, I think people won money, and cheers were given to the TV and each other. Somewhere in all of this we met Jim Cashman.

There was a flurry of ordering before the main race or heat – whatever they call it – and I’m pretty sure we were chatting with him already. I know he shared a few observations as they got the horses into the gates. Whenever his arrival, by the end of the race he was our buddy.

I mentioned Irish stereotypes earlier and he made certain to be one. A silver tongued, brightly smiling, red cheeked salt or sprite depending on the lighting. Something out of Yeats. He didn’t tell tales so much as weave together strings of fabrication to effect and with flourish. He’d mention that he was married three times and a few minutes later tell us why he left his fifth wife. He wrote a few books of poetry, he said. Owned a pub in Cork. He was a hurler; played for the Irish National Team. He was a businessman. He owned a summer home there. He was whatever the direction of conversation called for and it was brilliant. Playing along with a practiced liar – an entertaining one, playful, and agile – can be a great deal of fun. It was harmless and winked and nodded at where appropriate.

Our barman had been on duty since my father and I asked him about the race that midafternoon. It was clear by the tone of his second or third last call that he meant no more business. But we were with Jim Cashman now, and there was no chance of the night ending just because it was morning. Naturally he knew a place.

We ended up at an all-night (all-hours?) piano bar. I remember there was a courtyard and a mezzanine inside though it was the smallest space you could fit a mezzanine in. Jim bought Champagne and I’ll assume the sky was lighter to the east when we went home. I don’t really remember.

The next day was a groggy drive to Cork and naturally we were laughing about Cashman most of the way. By midafternoon all our hotel checking in was dispensed with so we decided to wander. A few blocks from the hotel I turned a corner and was stopped dead. Bookended by beer advertisements was a sign above a pub in big loud yellow in red letters reading “Jim Cashman’s.”

Inside I asked the barman about the owner, was he in? I mentioned we met someone named Jim Cashman in Dublin. He laughed. “Loudmouth? Always going on about boats?” I don’t think he said anything about boats, but it was obvious we were talking about the same guy. There was a decades old picture of the Irish National Hurling Team with names listed in small print below, seated or standing left to right.

There he was.

I can’t remember how I phrased it but I brought up Cashman’s claimed marriages doing my best to not seem nosy. That’s a tough needle to thread and I don’t know that I succeeded, but I got an answer. “He’ll tell you he’s married half of Ireland and a few French girls too. I’m not really sure, but more than most.”

I stopped dead again a few days later at the Jameson’s distillery. In the parking lot there was a car with “Jim Cashman’s Auto Dealership” or something like that. It may have said Ford or Vauxhall rather than Auto, but it definitely said Jim Cashman.

He and dad swapped email addresses. Turns out he was a poet. I can’t find any of his work, but I’m not doubting him again.

This week’s poem isn’t by Cashman, though there may come a day if we eat our vegetables and say our prayers. It’s by Winthrop Mackworth Praed, a respected wit and politician who died young, tuberculosis at thirty-six. There’s still a Praed Society at Eton, an invitation only – they probably say tapped – poetry club.

I found this flipping through The New Oxford Book of Light Verse. Praed’s “The Talented Man” is about a young lady’s impression of a self-centered show-off with an acute case of protagonitis. Now, Cashman was a successful good-natured man playing at being a pretender show-off while in fact being just a show-off and knowing it all came across as entertaining. I got lost in that too. Think As You Like It, but braggadocios.

In the poem, the object of the lady’s admiration demands attention. Cashman did that, but the comparison ends. Praed glanced a happy memory. I still have a threadbare “Jim Cashman’s – 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup” t-shirt.

This is a clever bit of work. I like the “Aunt Lucy’s toucan” line.

The Talented Man
Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-1839)

DEAR Alice! you’ll laugh when you know it, —
Last week, at the Duchess’s ball,
I danced with the clever new poet, —
You’ve heard of him, — Tully St. Paul.
Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;
I wish you had seen Lady Anne!
It really was very romantic,
He is such a talanted man!

He came up from Brazenose College,
Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
Of every conceivable thing.
Of science and logic he chatters,
As fine and as fast as he can;
Though I am no judge of such matters,
I’m sure he’s a talented man.

His stories and jests are delightful; —
Not stories or jests, dear, for you;
The jests are exceedingly spiteful,
The stories not always quite true.
Perhaps to be kind and veracious
May do pretty well at Lausanne;
But it never would answer, — good gracious!
Chez nous — in a talented man.

He sneers, — how my Alice would scold him! —
At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;
He laughed — only think! — when I told him
How we cried o’er Trevelyan last year;
I vow I was quite in a passion;
I broke all the sticks of my fan;
But sentiment’s quite out of fashion,
It seems, in a talented man.

Lady Bab, who is terribly moral,
Has told me that Tully is vain,
And apt — which is silly — to quarrel,
And fond — which is sad — of champagne.
I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
For I saw, when my Lady began,
It was only the Dowager’s malice; —
She does hate a talented man!

He’s hideous, I own it. But fame, love,
Is all that these eyes can adore;
He’s lame, — but Lord Byron was lame, love,
And dumpy, — but so is Tom Moore.
Then his voice, — such a voice! my sweet creature,
It’s like your Aunt Lucy’s toucan:
But oh! what’s a tone or a feature,
When once one’s a talented man?

My mother, you know, all the season,
Has talked of Sir Geoffrey’s estate;
And truly, to do the fool reason,
He has been less horrid of late.
But today, when we drive in the carriage,
I’ll tell her to lay down her plan; —
If ever I venture on marriage,
It must be a talented man!

P.S. — I have found, on reflection,
One fault in my friend, — entre nous;
Without it, he’d just be perfection; —
Poor fellow, he has not a sou!
And so, when he comes in September
To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan,
I’ve promised mamma to remember
He’s only a talented man!