In the fall of 1977, I began my freshman year of college at Itawamba Community College in Fulton. Among my classes was English Literature 101, taught by Nan Comer, who I’ll always regard as one of my most important teachers. It was in her class that I was exposed to real literature.

Although I had always been a reader and there was a wealth of books and magazines in my childhood home, my exposure to the classics and poetry were limited at best.

That changed that fall, the fall I met Byron, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth et al, the romantic poets of England from the late 1700s and early 1800s.

As I was looking through the index of poetry selections in the textbook for the class, I found a familiar name whose presence there among the romantics and those who succeeded them, including Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost and many, many others.

Monday came the word that Canadian folk singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot had died in a Toronto hospital at age 84.

Every generation has artists who provide the soundtrack of their formative years and occupy a nostalgic corner of their lives long after their careers have faded.

Gordon Lightfoot was one of those artists for me. By the time I reached Itawamba, I was already a Lightfoot fan, but I never imagined him to find a place among the greats of 300 years of English poetry. Yet, there he was, with a single entry, the lyrics to one of his earliest successes as a songwriter – “In The Early Morning Rain.” I had long appreciated his lyrics in so many of his songs, but it wasn’t until that day at Itawamba that I began to recognize him as what he was, a poet.

Music lovers recognize great songwriters across all genres, but even some of the most prolific hit-makers never elevate their lyrics to literature and poetry.  That list is substantially shorter and is led indisputably by Bob Dylan, whose work was recognized with a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016.

Lightfoot’s song-writing rivals Dylan in lyrics that transcend tunes to become poetry.

He remains a national treasure in his native Canada. He is Canada’s Dylan.

Dylan, meanwhile, considered  Lightfoot his favorite songwriter. “ I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like,” Dylan said. “Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.”

Great songs have great tunes, of course. It is the combination of the two that make those songs memorable. Lightfoot was a meticulous songwriter, scoring his own music and honing the tunes to augment his natural talent as a poet/storyteller.

In his obituaries the songs listed most often are “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown,” but for me, my thoughts turn to the aching homesickness found in “In The Early Morning Rain” and a song that tells a story perhaps as well as any song that has ever been written. Although not an allegory, I’ve always heard in Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” They are both great storytelling elevated to literature.

That same brilliant story-telling is also found in “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” commissioned by the Canadian Broadcast Company to celebrate Canada’s Centennial in 1967.

If you want to inspire young people to embrace literature and poetry, beginning with Gordon Lightfoot might be a pretty good place to start.

It was for me.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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