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Friday, May 05, 2006

The Shooting of Dan McGrew (Robert Service)

The Shooting of Dan McGrew audio file here. (And Dan McGrew text here)

I find this poem even more fun to recite than The Cremation of Sam McGee. Sure, Robert Service had his faults. His poems were often sentimental, maudlin, forced. But when he got on a roll, as he did in this one, and in Sam McGee, and,
to a much lesser extent, in The Ballad of Casey's Billy Goat (and, showing that he wasn't completely a one trick pony, in The Spell of the Yukon, and My Madonna), Service mostly overcame his weaknesses and created some things of lasting value.

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