Good Mood: Poetry from Mark Edmundson

Mark Edmundson is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Virginia College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He shares his poetry to inspire a smile. 

Edmundson specializes in Romanticism, Poetry, and 19th-Century English and American Literature. He is the author of sixteen books, and his essays appear in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The New York Times Magazine. Edmundson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and was a National Endowment for the Humanities/Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia.

Good Mood

I hit the car radio like a slot machine, hoping for luck,

And there, on air, is a song by Willie, called “Diamond Days.”

I catch a minute of it—almost over, and the d.j. comes on and tells me

That Willie’s got a CD release party coming up downtown,

Not news about the Mad King, terror prognostics, or stock mart jump and slump,

But good news, in a song, about good days, 

I feel lighter, younger, happy (that’s the word)

And I have the promise of the world, 

And diamond days to come in my ears.

I remember when Willie was two, 

With flip-flop curls,

Soft footed pajamas and omni-smile,

Dragging his plastic guitar behind him.  Do you want one, I asked. Real?

He said, I wanna go –Wah, wah, wah, do, do dam-dong,

Now he does!  On the radio a sprinkle of magic,

Do, do, dam-dong,

And it lifts my heart, high up. Tree-top high, cloud high.

And it doesn’t hurt much at all, when the song ends and I come gently down.

Diamond Day!

You might also enjoy reading To my Socks by Mark Edmundson.