Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is

Friday, January 26, 2004. Today's poem is by John Greenleaf Whittier, born 1807, died 1892.

Whittier's member of the fireside poets, a group of American poets working mostly in the 19th century.

The first group of poets to establish a kind of American school of poetry and win notoriety, both

continentally and abroad, for the quality of their poetry.

The fireside poets were really the first American poets who could rival the Brits.

This group also included the great Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and

some sometimes depending on who you ask a few others, including Ralph Waldo Emerson,

and of course John Greenleaf Whittier himself. Today, probably

one of the less recognizable names in that list and one of the less read and remembered

fireside poets, which is a shame. And hopefully, if he's a stranger to you or you to him,

maybe today's poem will be a nice introduction that will create a lasting friendship.

Holmes himself, or rather, or Whittier, I'm even mixing him up with the other fellows.

Whittier himself was a Quaker and an energetic and outspoken abolitionist before the American Civil War.

You can hear in many of his poems that sense of social concern and zeal for the dignity of his fellow man.

Today's poem is an interesting example of that zeal as it is asking people to do a sometimes

difficult thing, and that is to speak well of a despised person.

I'll say more after an initial reading.

Today's poem is entitled Iqabad.

I'll read it once, offer a few few comments and then read it one more time.

Iqabad.

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