On George Gershwin's Birthday [by David Lehman]

On George Gershwin’s birthday
I keep expecting them to play
Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris,
the Cuban Overture,  the Concerto in F,
Porgy and Bess as played by Miles Davis,
but no, all day it’s been Dvorak, Grieg,
Rimsky-Korsakov, and other worthies
not born today, Elgar for heaven’s sake;
at least they could give us some Debussy,
as didn’t "they" (such a useful pronoun)
criticize him for imitating Debussy,
or Ravel, who declined to give George lessons
saying, “Why become a second-rate Ravel
when you’re already a first-rate Gershwin?”

-- DL

Froim the archive; posted by The Best American Poetry on September 26, 2020 at 03:59 AM 

On George Gershwin’s birthday
I keep expecting them to play
Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris,
the Cuban Overture,  the Concerto in F,
Porgy and Bess as played by Miles Davis,
but no, all day it’s been Dvorak, Grieg,
Rimsky-Korsakov, and other worthies
not born today, Elgar for heaven’s sake;
at least they could give us some Debussy,
as didn’t "they" (such a useful pronoun)
criticize him for imitating Debussy,
or Ravel, who declined to give George lessons
saying, “Why become a second-rate Ravel
when you’re already a first-rate Gershwin?”

-- DL

Comments

[Emily Fragos]

I know a musician who performed "Rhapsody in Blue" in Vilnius, Lithuania. The audience went crazy for jazzy Gershwin. The whole world loves Gershwin.

[David Lehman]

It's great that George shares a birthday with T. S. Eliot.