Desiderata
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Desiderata" (Latin: "things desired") is an early 1920s
prose poem Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...
by the American writer
Max Ehrmann Max Ehrmann (September 26, 1872 – September 9, 1945) was an American writer, poet, and attorney from Terre Haute, Indiana, widely known for his 1927 prose poem "Desiderata" (Latin: "things desired"). He often wrote on spiritual themes. Educa ...
. Although he copyrighted it in 1927, he distributed copies of it without a required copyright notice during 1933 and , thereby forfeiting his US copyright. The text was widely distributed in poster form in the 1960s and 1970s.


History

Max Ehrmann of
Terre Haute, Indiana Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...
, wrote the work in the early 1920s, starting in 1921, but he did not use any title. He registered for his US copyright in 1927 via its first phrase. The April 5, 1933 issue of Michigan Tradesman magazine (No. 2585) published the full, original text on its cover, crediting Max Ehrmann as its author. In 1933 he distributed the poem in the form of a Christmas card, evidently entitling it "Desiderata" because a few days later he wrote in his ''Journal'' that a Kansas editor criticized his "Desiderata". Several years before 1942 a depressed woman gave psychiatrist
Merrill Moore Merrill Moore (1903 – 1957) was an American psychiatrist and poet. Born and educated in Tennessee, he was a member of the Fugitives. He taught neurology at the Harvard Medical School and published research about alcoholism. He was the aut ...
a copy of the poem without the name of the author, allowing him to hand out over 1,000 unattributed copies to his patients and soldiers during World War II. After Ehrmann died in 1945, his widow first published the work in 1948 in ''The Poems of Max Ehrmann''. The Reverend Frederick Kates handed out about 200 unattributed copies to his congregation at Old Saint Paul's Church, Baltimore, during 1959 or 1960.Contrary to Bell v. Combined Registry Company, Desiderata is not in ''Between Dawn and Dusk'' by Rev. Kates for 1957 through its eighth printing. The 1948 version was in the form of one long prose paragraph, so earlier and later versions were presumably also in that form. Long after the author's death in 1945, hence not authorized by him, the work was partitioned into subparagraphs or stanzas. The text was widely distributed in poster form in the 1960s and 1970s. It was first partitioned into a few subparagraphs separated by "distinctive spacing figures" in 1970 by Pro Arts and Crescendo Publishers. Later It was split into four or more subparagraphs separated by new lines in DePauw University's ''Mirage'' for 1978, and in the July/August 1999 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. In some versions, almost all instances of "and" are replaced by ampersands, "&". Other versions change "the noise and the haste" to "the noise and haste" and change "Be cheerful." to "Be careful.", notably the 1971 spoken word recording by
Les Crane Les Crane (born Lesley Stein; December 3, 1933 – July 13, 2008) was a radio announcer and television talk show host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit with his 1971 recording of the poem ''Desiderata'', w ...
.


Copyright status

On January 3, 1927, Ehrmann registered "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, etc." under US copyright number A 962402. In 1948, three years after Ehrmann's death, Bertha K. Ehrmann, his widow, included "Desiderata" in ''The Poems of Max Ehrmann'', published that year by the Bruce Humphries Publishing Company of Boston. via In 1954, she renewed the copyright. In 1959 or 1960, the Reverend Frederick Kates,
rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of Saint Paul's Church in
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, included "Desiderata" in a compilation of devotional materials for his congregation. The compilation included the church's foundation date, "Old Saint Paul's Church, Baltimore AD 1692," which readers subsequently took, and sometimes still do take, to be the date of the poem's composition. In 1967, Robert L. Bell acquired the publishing rights from Bruce Humphries Publishing Company, where he was president, and then bought the copyright from Richard Wright, nephew and heir to the Ehrmann works. In August 1971, the poem was published in ''Success Unlimited'' magazine, without permission from Robert L. Bell. In a 1975 lawsuit against the magazine's publisher, Combined Registry Co., the court ruled (and subsequently the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts: * Central District of Illinois * Northern District of ...
upheld) that copyright had been abandoned and forfeited because the poem had been authorized for publication without a copyright notice in 1933 and 1942 – and that the poem was therefore in the public domain. However, Bell refused to recognize the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals' decision. Because the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the decision was only valid in the Seventh's jurisdiction, the states of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Consequently, Bell continued to pursue others in other jurisdictions, either demanding they remove the poem from their publications, giving permission for a small portion to be published, or receiving royalties until his death in 2009.


Significant usages of the poem

* When former
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
Governor and United States ambassador to the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
Adlai Stevenson died in 1965, a guest in his home found a copy of the poem near his bedside and discovered that Stevenson had planned to use it in his
Christmas card A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to Christmastide and the holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during ...
s. This contributed further to the poem becoming widely known. * Calling it "Spock Thoughts",
Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy (; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the '' Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series in 1966, th ...
recited the poem on his 1968 album ''
Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy ''Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy'' is Leonard Nimoy's second album released shortly after '' Music from Outer Space''. It was released in early 1968 by Dot Records and reached 97 on the US album chart. Background The album is a continuation of the " ...
''. It also appeared on the 1995 re-release of ''
Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space ''Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space'' is the debut album of Leonard Nimoy, recorded in character as Mr. Spock from the NBC TV series ''Star Trek''. It was released in April 1967 by Dot Records and reached number 83 on t ...
''. His rendition is not the only one to change the second-to-last sentence from "Be Cheerful" to "Be Careful". * In 1971,
Les Crane Les Crane (born Lesley Stein; December 3, 1933 – July 13, 2008) was a radio announcer and television talk show host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit with his 1971 recording of the poem ''Desiderata'', w ...
used a spoken-word recording of the poem as the lead track of his album ''
Desiderata "Desiderata" (Latin: "things desired") is an early 1920s prose poem by the American writer Max Ehrmann. Although he copyrighted it in 1927, he distributed copies of it without a required copyright notice during 1933 and , thereby forfeiting his ...
''. His producers had assumed that the poem was too old to be in copyright, but the publicity surrounding the record led to clarification of Ehrmann's authorship and his family eventually receiving royalties. His version peaked at number 4 in Australia in December 1971. * In 1972, '' National Lampoon'' released "
Deteriorata "Deteriorata" is a comedy record released as a single in 1972. It is a parody of Les Crane's 1971 spoken word recording of "Desiderata", the early 20th-century poem by Max Ehrmann. ("Desiderata" is Latin for "desired things"; "deteriorata" is a p ...
", a parody of the poem and of
Les Crane Les Crane (born Lesley Stein; December 3, 1933 – July 13, 2008) was a radio announcer and television talk show host, a pioneer in interactive broadcasting who also scored a spoken word hit with his 1971 recording of the poem ''Desiderata'', w ...
's spoken-word recording. * A
Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
version by Mexican actor Arturo Benavides topped the Mexican charts for six weeks in 1972. * In response to his government's losing its majority in the 1972 Canadian federal election, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau reassured the nation by quoting ''Desiderata'', "Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." * In the 1982 episode of '' The Professionals'', "Discovered In A Graveyard", a framed copy is found in Ray Doyle's apartment and is read aloud by George Cowley. * In 2010, Ehrmann's home town of
Terre Haute, Indiana Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...
, unveiled a bronze statue by Bill Wolfe of the author sitting on a park bench. * The actor
Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, director, and narrator. He is known for his distinctive deep voice and various roles in a wide variety of film genres. Throughout his career spanning over five decades, he has received ...
, interviewed in 2012 on
Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...
's Master Class television special, explained how deeply the poem had shaped his life. * The
Voice of Peace Voice of Peace ( he, קול השלום, ''Kol HaShalom'') was an offshore radio station that broadcast in the Middle East for 20 years from the former Dutch cargo vessel ''MV Peace'' (formally ''MV Cito''), anchored off the Israeli coast i ...
broadcast
Abie Nathan Avraham "Abie" Nathan ( he, אברהם "אייבי" נתן, 29 April 1927 – 27 August 2008) was an Israeli humanitarian and peace activist. He founded the Voice of Peace radio station. When he died the president of Israel Shimon Peres said about ...
reading the Desiderata every day at sunset.


References


External links

* {{Authority control American poems 1927 poems 1971 singles United States copyright case law