Welcome to this weekend's entry in our Mark Steyn Club anthology of video poetry. This Sunday finds me sailing Glacier Bay in Alaska on the Second Annual Mark Steyn Cruise. What with the glaciers hither and yon, the subject occasionally turns to President Trump's recent suggestion that maybe the United States should buy Greenland from the Danes - a proposal regarded by our American cruisers with near universal favor. That manifest if chilly destiny in turn reminded me of what to my mind is the greatest poem on the subject - Greenland by James Montgomery.
Montgomery wrote Greenland two hundred years ago - 1819 - and published it in his newspaper - The Sheffield Iris. He had done the same a couple of years earlier with what has proved a rather better-known work over the centuries: the Christmas carol "Angels from the Realms of Glory". But I have always had a soft spot for this more ambitious project. As much as anything else, Greenland is a tale of climate change - profound and devastating and nothing to do with man and his SUVs and automatic washing machines. In this video I discuss the background to the poem and its author, and then give it a whirl. To watch (or hear) "Greenland", please click here and log-in.
If you'd like to catch up on earlier poems in the series, you can find them on our new Sunday Poems home page. As with Tales for Our Time, we're archiving our video poetry in an easy-to-access Netflix-style tile format that we hope makes it the work of moments to prowl around and alight on something that piques your interest, whether Keats or Kipling,
Steyn's Sunday Poem is made possible by members of The Mark Steyn Club. We launched the Steyn Club over two years ago, and as our third season cranks into top gear I'm immensely heartened by all the longtime SteynOnline regulars - from Fargo to Fiji, Madrid to Malaysia, West Virginia to Witless Bay - who've signed up to be a part of it. Membership in The Mark Steyn Club does come with some non-poetic benefits too, including:
~Our nightly radio serial Tales for Our Time, the thirtieth of which starts later this month;
~Audio series on pertinent topics, such as our current nightly installments of Climate Change: The Facts;
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly;
~Transcript and audio versions of Mark's Mailbox, SteynPosts, and other video content, including today's poem;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~The opportunity to join me and my guests on our annual Mark Steyn Cruise;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here. And for our special Gift Membership see here. Oh, and by the way, that Steyn cruise always includes a live performance of a Sunday Poem.
One other benefit to Club Membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this feature, or consider my poem reading a bust, then feel free to comment away below. Please do stay on topic on all our comment threads, because that's the way to keep them focused and readable. With that caution, have at it (in verse, if you wish).
