A Heap O' Rhymin'

Television, desperate for enough material to fill its broadcast hours, has finally discovered an almost inexhaustible source. The verbal reservoir: 69-year-old Edgar A. Guest, "poet of the plain people," who has been dashing off at least one verse a day for almost 50 years, mainly for his daily stint in the Detroit Free Press. In 1930, when he stopped counting them, Guest had already mass-produced more than 10,000 cheerful rhymes.

A Homey Type. With A Guest in Your Home (weekdays, 3:15 p.m.), NBC last week set about tapping this flood of tripping words, got even more than it had bargained for. On TV, Versifier Guest projects a personality that has far more bite than his poesy. His assets include a suave platform manner perfected at innumerable Rotary lunches, nimble eyebrows, a vibrant voice that radiates sincerity. Seated at a circular table, looking like a cross between an older Fred Allen and the late O. O. Mclntyre, he recites his poems, listens contentedly to ballad-singing Guitarist Paul Arnold, or makes small talk with a wholesome-looking young woman named Rachel Stevenson, who occasionally pours coffee. Sometimes a guest sits in, but "we never have a celebrity, just some homey type with a warm, interesting human story."

British-born Edgar Guest prefers to think of himself as a working newspaperman, rather than a poet. He joined the staff of the Free Press in 1895, has been there ever since. But even as a police reporter, he overflowed with human kindness and still corresponds with a few lifers who sentimentally recall his heart-warming stories about their crimes, trials and convictions. Possibly the only exception to his engulfing sentimental regard for humanity is the author (Dorothy Parker heatedly denies the honor) of the cynical couplet:

I'd rather flunk my Wassermann test Than read a poem by Edgar A. Guest.

Out of Experience. Guest explains his philosophy by saying that "everything I ve ever wanted has been given me--so naturally I'm optimistic." With the help of his brother, a printer, Guest personally published his first three books of verse Encouraged by their modest sale, he submitted the fourth, A Heap o' Livin', to both Harper and Doubleday. Both turned it down and the book was eventually brought out by Reilly & Lee, the Chicago house that has issued all 22 of his subsequent books. A Heap o' Livin' sold more than half a million copies, and so deeply moved certain members of a school board that they named a Detroit grammar school after Guest. Because he figures that "if something happens to me, it must happen to other people," Guest tries to write his verses out of his own experience. But the strain of turning out a poem a day for half a century is beginning to tell. Says Guest warmly: "If anybody'd give me a new idea, I'd kiss 'em."

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