In last week’s mail, I received my copy of the Emily Dickinson International Society’s “Bulletin,” Volume 38, Number 1 (May/June 2026). As I thumbed through it, the first line of Don Skoog’s article, “When Words Become Birds: An Essay on Vision as Tone,” jumped out at me:
“I was shocked to realize that Dickinson died only seventy years before I was born – just one lifetime ago.”
At that point, I read no further. Instead, I pulled out my calculator and punched in nineteen-fifty-six minus eighteen-eighty-six, seventy. Seems I am the same vintage as Herr Skoog, as I, too, was born a mere seventy years beyond the death of Dickinson.
And don’t you love that last name, “Skoog”? I wondered what “Skoog” meant, and after a quick online search, I discovered first that it is “a customizable electronic musical instrument that has been designed to be inclusive and accessible – especially to those unable to play conventional musical instruments” – and second that it is a surname. Well, I already knew “Skoog” was surname because Don Skoog’s surname is “Skoog”; however, from the Wikipedia list of notable Skoogs, I gathered that “Skoog” is Swedish.
“I was shocked to realize that Dickinson died only seventy years before I was born – just one lifetime ago.”
At that point, I read no further. Instead, I pulled out my calculator and punched in nineteen-fifty-six minus eighteen-eighty-six, seventy. Seems I am the same vintage as Herr Skoog, as I, too, was born a mere seventy years beyond the death of Dickinson.
And don’t you love that last name, “Skoog”? I wondered what “Skoog” meant, and after a quick online search, I discovered first that it is “a customizable electronic musical instrument that has been designed to be inclusive and accessible – especially to those unable to play conventional musical instruments” – and second that it is a surname. Well, I already knew “Skoog” was surname because Don Skoog’s surname is “Skoog”; however, from the Wikipedia list of notable Skoogs, I gathered that “Skoog” is Swedish.
I plugged “Skoog” into the Google Translator, Swedish to English, and “Skoog” translated as “Skoog.” Wikipedia reported, though, reported that the surname “Skoog” is an older or alternative spelling of the Swedish “skog,” and “skog” in Swedish is “forest”; therefore, the last name “Skoog” typically indicates that an ancestor lived or worked at one time or another near a wooded area.
On Wikipedia’s list of notable Skoogs (pictured above), I clicked on “Ed Skoog” since he was listed as “American poet” (I assume of Swedish descent). His pic below – the one on the left – is from a bio page on the Poetry Foundation’s site. I’m not sure where he is in the pic, but it looks like he’s staring up through some sort of kaleidoscope. Since I’m a collector of glass and a lover of light through glass, Skoog’s image resonated with me. On the right – just for fun – I played around with the photo and brightened it up to make it all look a bit glassier.
On Wikipedia’s list of notable Skoogs (pictured above), I clicked on “Ed Skoog” since he was listed as “American poet” (I assume of Swedish descent). His pic below – the one on the left – is from a bio page on the Poetry Foundation’s site. I’m not sure where he is in the pic, but it looks like he’s staring up through some sort of kaleidoscope. Since I’m a collector of glass and a lover of light through glass, Skoog’s image resonated with me. On the right – just for fun – I played around with the photo and brightened it up to make it all look a bit glassier.
I then selected one of his poems to read at random, “The Carolers.”
 |  |
The work was published in a 2004 volume of “Poetry,” so Skoog was in his early thirties at the time of publication. I mention this because I wondered how old Skoog was when he wrote the poem because the work shifts effortlessly in the final sentence (beginning at line 22) from childhood memory to adulting reality. The final phrase, “and years / and years of night” called to mind those promises Robert Frost had to keep at the close of “Stopping by Skogs – er, Woods – on a Snowy Evening”: “And miles to go before I sleep / And miles to go before I sleep.”
Skoog’s carol is of a childhood memory of drunken yuletide revelry that modulates to commutes though local traffic, obligations of home ownership, responsibility for others' lives (children of his own? elderly parents?), and years and years of night, once a boy’s “vast winter bedroom silence” where he could wonder and dream, now transformed into grown-up nights of racing thoughts and nighttime anxiety.
The title of the poem, “The Carolers,” actually opens the first line of the poem, for it is they, the carolers, who, in scarves and boots and drinks in hand, twist round the neighbor’s tree and crawl though Jim’s snowed-in car. These carolers who stumble through snow and lyric have, indeed, tasted a liquor most certainly brewed, perhaps not from tankards scooped in pearl – more likely the red plastic Solo variety – and inebriate of more than crisp winter air are they. These drifting Debauchees have definitely been visited by Christmas “spirits,” as they reel through the vast winter night from homes of amber light. Jim’s wife hears them coming, implores him to open the front door, and holds back the young speaker of the poem who is eager to join the fun in the cold night air. The faithful then shuffle and slump through the family’s car as the looping melody of “I saw three ships” fades into darkness, al niente. Soon the speaker is drifting to sleep, and suddenly, this lived and breathed episode of festive high jinks from his youth is an ornament of memory.
Let me shift gears for just a minute:
Years ago, when I was in my early thirties, my wife and I attended a funeral for some relative on my wife's side of the family. We were in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a rusted-out steel town east of Pittsburgh. As we sat in a local diner for lunch, many of the family elders parked in a nearby booth laughed and cried through a myriad of family memories. I heard one of them say something like, “We were in our thirties then, and now we’re in our seventies. How did that happen?” They all chuckled.
Now all of those people are gone, and I think to myself, “I was in my thirties then, and I’m about to turn seventy. How did that happen?” Then I read Ed Skoog's poem, and it reminded me of a night of festal caroling in my own youth when my mother opened the front door and invited a neighborhood chorus in for seasonal grog. Soon that night, I was falling asleep in vast winter bedroom silence, and now – after years and years of night – here I sit on my back porch in a wooded area – a skog, if you will – listening to the carols of treetop birds and writing this post. Tempus fugit.
More like "tempus fukit."
Below: The sun peeking though one our back porch windows this morning.
Skoog’s carol is of a childhood memory of drunken yuletide revelry that modulates to commutes though local traffic, obligations of home ownership, responsibility for others' lives (children of his own? elderly parents?), and years and years of night, once a boy’s “vast winter bedroom silence” where he could wonder and dream, now transformed into grown-up nights of racing thoughts and nighttime anxiety.
The title of the poem, “The Carolers,” actually opens the first line of the poem, for it is they, the carolers, who, in scarves and boots and drinks in hand, twist round the neighbor’s tree and crawl though Jim’s snowed-in car. These carolers who stumble through snow and lyric have, indeed, tasted a liquor most certainly brewed, perhaps not from tankards scooped in pearl – more likely the red plastic Solo variety – and inebriate of more than crisp winter air are they. These drifting Debauchees have definitely been visited by Christmas “spirits,” as they reel through the vast winter night from homes of amber light. Jim’s wife hears them coming, implores him to open the front door, and holds back the young speaker of the poem who is eager to join the fun in the cold night air. The faithful then shuffle and slump through the family’s car as the looping melody of “I saw three ships” fades into darkness, al niente. Soon the speaker is drifting to sleep, and suddenly, this lived and breathed episode of festive high jinks from his youth is an ornament of memory.
Let me shift gears for just a minute:
Years ago, when I was in my early thirties, my wife and I attended a funeral for some relative on my wife's side of the family. We were in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a rusted-out steel town east of Pittsburgh. As we sat in a local diner for lunch, many of the family elders parked in a nearby booth laughed and cried through a myriad of family memories. I heard one of them say something like, “We were in our thirties then, and now we’re in our seventies. How did that happen?” They all chuckled.
Now all of those people are gone, and I think to myself, “I was in my thirties then, and I’m about to turn seventy. How did that happen?” Then I read Ed Skoog's poem, and it reminded me of a night of festal caroling in my own youth when my mother opened the front door and invited a neighborhood chorus in for seasonal grog. Soon that night, I was falling asleep in vast winter bedroom silence, and now – after years and years of night – here I sit on my back porch in a wooded area – a skog, if you will – listening to the carols of treetop birds and writing this post. Tempus fugit.
More like "tempus fukit."
Below: The sun peeking though one our back porch windows this morning.
By the way, another line from Don Skoog's article caught my eye. I’ll get to that tomorrow.
EXTRA! EXTRA!
Oh sweet cheeses, are you ready for a snicker? I could not stop laughing at something I found! While exploring Ed Skoog’s poem “The Carolers,” I discovered a botched version on Poem-Hunter-dot-com, HERE. The poem on PH.com – shown below on the left – is 27 lines vs. the Poetry Foundation's version – shown on the right – which is 28 lines. (BTW: This is not the laughable part.)
Below: Yellow highlights show bungled lines and/or added words; Green highlights show no italics or quotation marks used to indicate words spoken by the other parent (line 7) or sung by the carolers (line 8).
Oh sweet cheeses, are you ready for a snicker? I could not stop laughing at something I found! While exploring Ed Skoog’s poem “The Carolers,” I discovered a botched version on Poem-Hunter-dot-com, HERE. The poem on PH.com – shown below on the left – is 27 lines vs. the Poetry Foundation's version – shown on the right – which is 28 lines. (BTW: This is not the laughable part.)
Below: Yellow highlights show bungled lines and/or added words; Green highlights show no italics or quotation marks used to indicate words spoken by the other parent (line 7) or sung by the carolers (line 8).
Now here's the absurd and laughable part: On the Poem Hunter's page, linked above, you’ll notice an audio file so that you can listen to the poem. Before clicking “play,” make sure that your laptop's volume is up – AND – make sure the site’s file is not muted (indicated at the red arrow in the pic below; if muted, click on it and slide their volume up).
When you’re certain the audio feature will work, take a listen. You will not believe what you will hear. I’ll say no more and leave it at that – but let me know (once you stop laughing) what you think.
Just FYI: I also found the poem HERE, and though there is no awful audio recording this time, there is no inclusion of the italic font in lines 5, 7, 8 and 20, which were – for good reason – used by Herr Skoog intentionally.
Just FYI: I also found the poem HERE, and though there is no awful audio recording this time, there is no inclusion of the italic font in lines 5, 7, 8 and 20, which were – for good reason – used by Herr Skoog intentionally.
RSS Feed
