![\"poets](\"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog-images-09\/poets-beards.jpg\" "\\"poets")
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In his 1913 classic (if that’s the right word) publication entitled Poets Ranked by Beard Weight, <\/em>Upton Uxbridge Underwood (1881\u20131937) ranked poets according to the gravity of their beards, assigning each one a “pogonometric index” score. (So I have learned from A Journey Round My Skull<\/a>, which informs me that Underwood was “a deipnosophist, clubman, and literary miscellanist with a special interest in tonsorial subjects.”) A score of 10, for example, was “very very weak,” whereas a score of 58 was “very very heavy.” Leaving aside for the moment the particulars of his methodology, let’s see how the poets stack up.<\/p>\n Beard gravity increases as we move from left to right and top to bottom:<\/p>\n So there you have it! Whitman is the lightest poet and Morse is the heaviest. (And he was the first code poet<\/a> too.)<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n All of this unabashedly stolen (though\u00a0 it did take me some while to arrange the poets in order) from A Journey Round My Skull<\/a>, where you can see larger images and read more. There, for example, you will learn that “Poets Ranked by Beard Weight<\/span> is the centerpiece of Underwood’s estimable, if fetish-fueled treatise on pogonology, or the study of whiskers and associated lore…. This quaint publication takes the reader on a fascinating excursion through such topics as False Beards, Merkins, and Capillamenta (chin wigs); Effusions of the Scalp and Face; Celebrated Chaetognaths (chaetognathous = hairy-jawed); and even includes an affectionate mini-essay about the wooly mammoth!”<\/p>\n\n
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\nBeard type: Hibernator
\nTypical opus: O Captain! My Captain!<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 22<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Dutch Elongated
\nTypical opus: The Village Blacksmith<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 24<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Van Dyke
\nTypical opus: The Lie<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 27<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n
\nBeard type: Wandering Jim
\nTypical opus: Within the Circuit of This Plodding Life<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 29<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Maltese
\nTypical opus: Crossing the Bar<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 33<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Queen’s Brigade
\nTypical opus: Commemoration Ode<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 34<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n
\nBeard type: Full Velutinous
\nTypical opus: Snow-bound<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 38<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Italian False Goatee
\nTypical opus: The Blessed Damozel<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 38<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Box
\nTypical opus: The Man With the Hoe<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 39<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n
\nBeard type: Spade
\nTypical opus: The Song of the Chattahoochee<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 41<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Van Winkle
\nTypical opus: To a Waterfowl<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 43<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Claus-esque
\nTypical opus: Waiting<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 43<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n
\nBeard type: Spatulate Imperial
\nTypical opus: Invictus<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 47<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Mock Forked Elongated
\nTypical opus: Kit Carson’s Ride<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 51<\/li>\n
\nBeard type: Garibaldi Elongated
\nTypical opus: What Hath God Wrought<\/span>
\nGravity (UPI rating): 58<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n