Staircase Poetry

The staircase has been the subject of poems for centuries, some mystic, some mundane. Titles include "The Winding Stair" by William Butler Yeats, which is actually a collection of verses. The author's winding stair symbolizes the twisting and turning path of life upon which the verses of experience gather. "Stairway to Heaven" may be found at the other end of a literary continuum, one hosting popular well-known rock songs.

A staircase can illicit thoughts and emotions of traveling up and traveling down - to heaven or to hell, into a scary attic or basement laboratory, or even into the surreal at the end of the staircase in the sky of a science fiction story.

Staircases are at least symbols for rites of passage from one phase of experience into another. This is represented such notions as the "ladder of success" toward the CEO' s position in a major corporation or by "Jacobs' Ladder" via which angels fly up and down to serve mankind in some faiths.

One poem about a particular staircase was written by the author X. J. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy was born in 1929 and upon becoming an adult, added the "X" to his name so as not to be confused with Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK's politically entrenched father.

Mr. X.J. Kennedy has written a multitude of literature, including books for adults and children, and poetry. He is also an editor and creator of anthologies of stories and verse.

In one of these books, X.J. collected adult light verse in the entitled Peeping Tom's Cabin. The title is a play on words of the Cincinnati-an Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which helped spur abolitionist activity and the end of slavery in the USA. One of my favorite passages from Peeping Tom's Cabin is this:

Once upon a midnight dreary

Blue and lonesome, missed my dearie.

Would I find her? Any hope?

Quoth the raven six times, "Nope."

Another favorite s this poem, one of his selected "Sinister Limericks" from the Peeping book:

Wailed an earnest young monk of Duluth

"Where O where is the ultimate truth?"

All at once from above

Dropped the dump of a dove-

Prompt reply, if a little uncouth.

XJ Kennedy enjoys poking fun at and roasting anyone, everyone, and everything. This includes staircases and their passengers.

Cubism also has not been spared by XJ Kennedy, especially in regard to staircases.

The artist Marcel Duchamp painted at least two Cubism inspired paintings of overlapping nude human figures walking down a staircase in a manner in which both the progression and each step taken could be seen at once. These paintings are named. Nude Descending a Staircase Number 1 and Number 2.

One of these versions, Number 2, was displayed in a well known gallery in 1912 and when the viewing public figured out it was a nude woman, shock abounded and the display was removed. There was even greater general sense of shock at the artistic style, of which one art critic in New York crudely stated that it looked like an explosion in a shingle factory.

In the 21st century, however, the famous image was so well accepted as to be turned into a computer video game avatar. XJ Kennedy decided to have fun with the image and composed a poem called "Nude Descending a Staircase."

Nude Descending a Staircase

© X. J. Kennedy

Toe upon toe, a snowing flesh,

A gold of lemon, root and rind,

She sifts in sunlight down the stairs

With nothing on. Nor on her mind.

We spy beneath the banister

A constant thresh of thigh on thigh--

Her lips imprint the swinging air

That parts to let her parts go by.

One-woman waterall, she wears

Her slow descent like a long cape

And pausing, on the final stair

Collects her motions into shape.

XJ suggests that all her overlapping images combine into one in a waterfall of motion and this is so. It also reminds me of a Slinky toy gathering all of its coils at the bottom of a stair case after flowing downward step by step. 

A famous staircase inspired musical poem, Me and My Shadow, was popularized in the early 20th Century by Ted Williams from Circleville, Ohio and his Orchestra. Williams would present this tune on stage and complete it by walking up a lonely staircase lighted by a single light bulb in the shadows of the night streets. Showman Jimmy Durante also used this setting for the number.

Words by Billy Rose, Music by Al Jolson and Dave Dreyer

[short version]

Me and my shadow

Strolling down the avenue

Me and my shadow

Not a soul to tell our troubles too

And when it's twelve o'clock

We climb the stair

We never knock

For nobody's there

Just me and my shadow

All alone and feeling blue

The staircase has been the subject of a number of poems, many of them song lyrics as well. This application has led to the development of various artistic arrangements, sometimes combining song and the spoken word. Artists involved have included poets, painters, and puppets; singers, dancers. rock musicians and rappers. Please enjoy the video presentations below.

Partial Lyrics

There's a lady who's sure

All that glitters is gold

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

When she gets there she knows

If the stores are all closed

With a word she can get what she came for

And she's buying a stairway to heaven

...Your stairway lies on the whisperin' wind...