Arthur Guiterman

Arthur Guiterman (; November 20, 1871 – January 11, 1943) was an American writer best known for his humorous poems. 

Life and career
Guiterman was born of American parents in Vienna.  He was graduated from the City College of New York in 1891, and later was married in 1909 to Vida Lindo.  He was an editor of the Woman's Home Companion and the Literary Digest.   In 1910, he cofounded the Poetry Society of America, and later served as its president in 1925–26. 

An example of his humour is a poem that talks about modern progress, with rhyming couplets such as "First dentistry was painless;/Then bicycles were chainless".  It ends on a more telling note:

Another Guiterman poem, "On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness", illustrates the philosophy also incorporated into his humorous rhymes:

Perhaps his most-quoted poem is his 1936 "DARling" satire about the Daughters of the American Revolution (and three other clubs open only to descendants of pre-Independence British Americans).  
That poem has a unique, intricate, strongly dramatic rhythmical structure...as analyzed, line by line and syllable by syllable, below.  The number of syllables in each line is shown in [brackets].  Strong accents are indicated by !.   No accent, or a weak accent, is indicated by ^.

The D.A.R.lings			        	[5]  	 	  ^  ! ! !   ^

chatter like starlings		        	[5]		  !! ^  ! ^

telling their 			        	[3]		  ^^^

ancestors' 			        	[3]		  ^^^

names,			        	        [1]		   ! 

while grimly aloof,		        	[5]		  ^  !  ^ ^  ! 

with looks of reproof,		        	[5]		  ^  !  ^ ^  ! 

sit the Co-			            	[3]		 ^^^

lonial 					        [3]		 ^^^

Dames. 				                [1]	  	 ! 

The Cincinnati,			        	[5]		  ^!    ^ !! 

merry and chatty,	        		[5]		  ! ^^  ! ^

dangle their 			        	[3]		  ! ^^

badges and 			        	[3]		 ! ^^

pendants;			        	[2]		 !  ^

but haughty and proud,		        	[5]		 ^  ! ^^  ! 

disdaining the crowd,		        	[5]		 ^  ! ^^  ! 

brood the			        	[2]		 ^^

Mayflower  			        	[3]		 ! ! ! 

descendants. 			                [3]		 ^ !  ^

He also notably wrote the libretto for Walter Damrosch's The Man Without a Country which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on May 12, 1937. 

Poetry
Collections

 
 
List of poems

Translations

References

External links

 
 
 
November 28, 1915, New York Times, Poets' Opportunities Greater than Ever Before; Arthur Guiterman Tells How to Make a Living Out of Verse and Gives a List of Don'ts for Aspiring Poets ;- Advises Writing on Topical Themes

Category:American male poets
Category:American humorists
Category:American magazine editors
Category:City College of New York alumni
Category:The New Yorker people
Category:American opera librettists
Category:1871 births
Category:1943 deaths
Category:People from Vienna
Category:American male non-fiction writers