Literary lions of Lorain

In the middle of a class discussion of Toni Morrison's Sula this evening I was reminded of a family visit to an aunt of a certain age, a native of Lorain, Ohio. At one point during our visit she squared her shoulders with pride and asked me, "Do you know what great author was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio?"

"Toni Morrison," I said.

"Who's he?"

She was referring, of course, to Lorain's other literary lion, Helen Steiner Rice, prolific author of inspirational rhyming verse. I would wager that upwards of 90 percent of Ohio's elderly aunts carry in their handbags yellowed newspaper clippings featuring poems of Helen Steiner Rice. Some years ago (this is true), I was asked to give a talk to a church women's group in which every meeting included at some point the reading of a sentimental poem by Helen Steiner Rice. I was determined to break the mold: I would present a program that would challenge these women toward deeper insight into contemporary issues. On the evening in question I made it all the way through my talk without any mention of Helen Steiner Rice, but no sooner had I mentally congratulated myself on my accomplishment than one of the indomitable old aunts snapped open her immense handbag, whipped out a yellowed newspaper clipping, and announced, "I have a poem I want to share."

It would be difficult to find two authors more unlike than Toni Morrison and Helen Steiner Rice. Their works share common references to the bonds of friendship and motherhood, but none of Helen Steiner Rice's poems deal with the dilemma faced by the mother who, to rescue her adult son from a life of heroin addiction, burns him alive. If Helen had considered such a scenario, the result might have looked something like this:

A Mother's love is something
that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of kerosene and flame.
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
And if the kid gets constipated
A little lard'll save the day.

No, Helen never wrote that poem, nor did she write about the kind of friendship shared by Sula and Nel:

Life is like a garden
with a river runnin' by
where we whirl and twirl a little boy
to see if he can fly.
Where we plant our dreams so carefully
and weed and wait and water--
until the day you take away
my man. Then you're non grata.

It has a certain ring to it, but I doubt the elderly aunts would carry these poems in their purses. They're jingly enough to fit in a Hallmark card--but Helen Toni Steiner Morrison Rice would never win the Nobel Prize.