It’s a thin line between famous and infamous
yet curiously they mean
much the same thing.
I was famous firstly to my parents
with no effort on my part.
My first sister, Carol, was infamous
for having sat on my rubber ball
and refusing to give it back
duly recorded on a coloured slide by my father
and ritually recalled at family slideshows.
My second sister, Helen, was famous at birth
the birthing bed attended by a whole team
of Canadian doctors, midwives and nurses
there to witness the miracle of home birth
– did they ever know her name?
Was our generation less famous
for want of social media
did Myspace, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter
produce more fame or infamy?
Never has human conflict been fought
by the many, on so many platforms
to achieve legacy for a few…
If we “Like” someone famous
is it a projection, saying more about us
than it does about the famous?
My claim to fame – to walk into a concert
with Vera Lynn on my arm,
embarrassingly dressed as a beefeater –
– someone thought that a good idea at the time
I came near to the famous
helping to prepare the first concert of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
– rumour had it a band member’s wife
was wearing a diamond necklace with T-shirt and jeans
but I wasn’t that near…
My mural of WB Yeats on a shop in Sligo
was famous – more than I
but it helped me find work
until a new shop owner painted over it –
fame rescinded
I would rather be famous to a select few
than infamous – which is famous in a bad way,
to a whole load of people
If you are famous to other people
for say -keeping to a strict routine
on your morning perambulations
but you are unaware of the fame
– does it still count?
Florence Nightingale is, to this day
famously, the Victorian founder
of nursing as we know it
but nobody who knew her
just as a person
is now left alive
– is history fame?
Fame cannot last past memories or histories
and infamy, though more garish,
is no more permanent…
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, lillian is hosting, OpenLinkNight where you may post a poem of your choice. This now was the product of my writing group in the shadow of the poem “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye…
I love this write. I was thinking maybe infamous should be unfamous and wondered about the “in” part. Getting famous for the wrong reasons is still fame to sum!
Thank you Colleen – I generally find that what comes out of my AWA type writing group has some substance after analysing a poem gets us in the zone… Will you be at the live meeting tomorrow?
This is a wonderful poem, Anndrew! I have pondered this a few times myself. I even wrote a poem called Famous Only Among Friends! Fame only lasts as long as history and memories keeps it in focus. Perhaps that is why we write… to be remembered?
You may be right, Dwight – and at least we do no harm by it…
I love the meandering through the pondering in this poem. Famous or infamous….
and in today’s world, I was struck by these lines:
“Never has human conflict been fought
by the many, on so many platforms
to achieve legacy for a few…”
Your poem brought up a long past memory for me….when our two children were young, they were quite excellent musicians: our son was in many a piano competition and played the drums for a swing choir as well. Our daughter, started taking pipe organ lessons at the age of 7 and was playing at church by age 12 and was a hired church organist all through high school The two of them, rather than having recitals with their teachers, put on a concert together every May. My husband and I became known as their parents to many folks we didn’t know at all! We were “famous” because of them 🙂 Ah memories….
Do hope to see you Saturday at dVerse LIVE!
I may have been parodying Winston Churchill talking about the Battle of Britain there, Lillian – glad you liked it and that it brought you a fond memory…
Couldn’t agree more, Andrew!
Thanks, Carol…
A gently ponderous poem, Andrew, which meanders beautifully through the meanings of ‘famous’ and ‘infamous’. It made me chuckle that your father recorded your sister’s infamy to be shown at family slideshows, and I think you have a point about our generation being less famous for want of social media, although most of the people on it are infamous as far as I’m concerned. I’d love to know more about your mural of WB Yeats. Do you have any photos?
Glad it amused you Kim – I have better than a picture – a video from the RTE (National) News of me painting the mural in 1995 so you can see me in my pomp 29 years ago…
https://www.rte.ie/archives/2016/0729/805794-yeats-summer-school/
The mural was for the Winding Stair Bookshop, which was alongside the Liffey in Dublin but had finally found a suitable site in Sligo for a second branch. I painted various scenes from Yeats’ poems and life including a copy of a painting of him in old age, asleep. Behind him were the books that had influenced him and over the top of everything, quotations undulated in gold-leaf…
Thank you so much, Andrew. When I lived in Ireland in the early 1980s, I spent a lot of time reading Yeats and reading about Yeats. Although I had a friend from Sligo, I never visited the town; I often wished I did.
Lovely to see you read yesterday, Kim…
Just watched the video you mentioned in reply to Kim. Fun to see….and my oh my…look at that youthful hair style! Love the mural….is it still there? You are definitely a multi-talented man! Thanks so much for coming to dVerse LIVE this morning. Always fun to see you there!
I won’t miss it if I can help it Lillian and it was so much fun reading. The Winding Stair Bookshop only lasted a few years – perhaps it was too difficult managing that and the Dublin one but it was then taken over by a boutique type shop who painted over the mural (foolish considering how many people it drew to pausing by their shop window…) and they painted it out with pink paint. It was a salutary lesson in the fleetingness of fame especially since I thought of it as my “masterwork”. I have a Zen painting set where you paint with water on a special ceramic tablet and it looks like black(ish) ink, but as it dries, it fades away, and that is designed to teach the same non-attachment to one’s work…
Hi Andrew, I really enjoyed hearing you read this today and it was equally enjoyable when I read it again now. Fame is a strange thing. Most artistic people only achieve it after their deaths which makes it meaningless to them, but perhaps fantastic for their successors. It is a nice idea to go down in history, but I’m not sure it matters once we exit this mortal life.
Indeed Robbie, and yet so many people yearn to create lasting “legacy” in material or temporal things instead of concentrating on the relationships whose ongoing memories are far more important…
“Never has human conflict been fought by the many, on so many platforms to achieve legacy for a few…” yes that is so true, Andrew! Stunning poem 💖💖
Thank you Sanaa, good luck with your move…
This is a tour de force Andrew and it was so good to hear you read it live (and thank you for the link to the video of you painting and being interviewed).
Thanks Paul, it was fun to read and good to hear you read too…
My first thought about fame is the old question (I’ll use the cleaner version) if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound. There have been narratives about fame written that show what one is willing to do for it and the price that is paid, but fame has never been something I’ve chased after. More to be known.
Well-reasoned and composed offering, Andrew.
Thanks, Lisa, poems like this just lead you through the thoughts…