The Wordly Goodman

The Palisades in Autumn
Jasper Francis Cropsey

Given his proposal, with architect brother Percival, to ban cars from Manhattan, Paul Goodman seems an unlikely poet to include in our summer series, "Drivers Ed... For Poets." Indeed, in one poem, "My Car Wrecked Between Bennington and Brattleboro," he is explicit about his aversion to driving: "A bad road, a bad car, and a bad driver...." (He crawls from the wreck, giving thanks to Castor and Pollux:"Savior Twins! teach me still not to care/as sparkling bright in the blue-black ye shine.")

Goodman is happier as a passenger, as here, in perhaps his most famous poems, "The Lordly Hudson":

"Driver, what stream is it?" I asked, well knowing
it was our lordly Hudson hardly flowing.
"It is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing,"
he said, under the green-grown cliffs."

Be still, heart! No one needs
your passionate suffrage to select this glory,
this is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing
under the green-grown cliffs.

"Driver, has this a peer in Europe or the East?"
"No, no!" he said. Home! Home!
Be quiet, heart! This is our lordly Hudson
and has no peer in Europe or the east.

This is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing
under the green-grown cliffs
and has no peer in Europe or the East.
Be quiet, heart! Home! Home!