“A Time and Motion Study and Other Poems” by Roger Merritt Morrell, M.D.

Am I the only person for whom books appear, in the garage, as if conjured by a bibliophilic genie? One of them is A Time and Motion Study, a slim, hardbound, gray volume produced in 1958 by the unfamiliar-sounding Exposition Press of New York City. (The front matter lists one other book by the author, A German-English Glossary of Neurophysiology [pictured].)

So much of art is a weighing of reputations. You see the name Roger Merritt Morrell — especially followed by "M.D." — and you grow suspicious. But suppose the book were signed "Adrienne Rich"? (Is there a website where you can read unsigned poems, and decide for yourself if they’re magnificent?)

And what’s going on with this title? Is Roger Merritt Morrell alluding to the song "Think of the Time I Save" in The Pajama Game?

Hinesy:

I’m a time study man, and a time study man can’t waste time.

For a time study man to waste time … is a crime.

So I’m ruled by the tick tick tock,

And I live my life by the clock.

I live my life by the tick tick tock of the clock.

When I go to sleep, I don’t undress.

That’s right, I sleep in all my clothes —

I must confess.

Sure, it’s a strange way to behave,

And I will admit that the suit gets mussed and it gathers lint And it picks up dust,

But think of the time I save!

Girls:

Think of the time he saves!*

Or is Roger Merritt Morrell, M.D. referring, in the title, to his medical training, to a scientific bent? If so, the title is misleading, because a bitter romanticism holds sway in these verses. Here is the opening of "Day of Wrath":

This is the gale’s day… a day for whistling wind to blister         through the dark blue holes of universe, flung in arrow streams

Straight, straight, straight from the seething eyes of God to the whirling globe below.

Reading this book, I realize I prefer "bad" poetry to "good" poetry. (Though I like great poetry the best.) The untutored poet attempts to out-Yeats Yeats, and sometimes, impossibly, succeeds!

Strangely, the book contains no photograph of Roger Merritt Morrell, M.D., yet I see him (mentally) quite clearly, in his gray suit, staring grandly off to the right.

*The Pajama Game opened on Broadway May 13, 1954, and the movie appeared in 1957.