by Reginald Arkell
Green Fingers is a collection of poetry, my copy was a reprint published in Toronto in 1936. The book was originally released in 1934 in England. This edition is illustrated with vintage black and white sketches.
Hatton Garden
In Devonshire, the diamonds
That glisten on the grassland
Are smaller than the diamonds
Behind these panes of glass.
You can keep your diamonds,
Which people place in pawn,
And I will have the diamonds,
That laugh upon the lawn.
This book is subtitled A Present for Good Gardeners, and for good reason – if you don’t know anything about gardening you will likely not understand all the jokes. The woes of weeds, seeds not coming up, slugs and beetles on flowers. Some of the poems have a somber tone, but most are funny and short.
Green Fly is one of my favourites in this collection. It is a poem about a fly that makes a home in the gardener’s roses. Every morning the roses have a new bite out of them – but in the end the gardener wins the battle! It is a very funny, quirky poem.
We Grow the Same Roses is another of my favourites. It is a more serious poem, about the common factors humanity shares despite our different nationalities, classes, and throughout our conflicts.
Some of the humour is definitely dated, about “powdering your nose” or Mary Pickford. But it still carries a charm, and I enjoyed the little references to history. There are some poems I didn’t like so much, but this is probably still my favourite poetry book – and the only one I own. There are many cute little gems in it.
Reginald Arkell 1881-1959 was a British playwrite, author and poet who wrote in a comical style. This copy of Green Fingers was illustrated by British painter Eugene Hastain.
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