1. For Groundhog Day: Richard Eberhart’s “The Groundhog,” performed by college students

    Richard_eberhart

    What to give you for Groundhog Day?  I wanted very much to share a clip of Rudy Vallee and Robert Morse singing the “Groundhog Song” from the movie version of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” but all I could find on YouTube were audio recordings of Rudy and Robert, and tons of really awful college / neighborhood productions of the same. 

     

    So nerts to that.

     

    Then, by chance, up floated another idea.

     

    I met Richard Eberhart at a poetry reading in the 1980s, and shook his hand, and told him how much I loved this poem, and he smiled and thanked me. 

     

    I still love it. 

     

    Below is a link to a video of a group of (I assume) college kids, somewhere, reading the poem (badly) and acting it out and generally murdering it.  Imagine!  The best poem ever written about a dead groundhog!

     

    I like to think that Eberhart (who died in 2005) would have enjoyed it.

     

    Happy Groundhog Day.

     

    (Postscript: if you want to read the poem as it was actually written, try this link.)