note to O Diana!The opening three stanzas are mostly, almost wholly, lifted from Donald Justice's preface to
The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees: "There is little mention of him in the histories of twentieth-century American poetry; he is not represented in the current anthologies. It is possible that his poems are no longer read; probably they were never very widely read..." The collection is published by the University of Nebraska Press (1962), edited by Donald Justice with an introduction by David Wojahn.
The "boom boodeeboom" bits are from
Goodness Gracious Me, a 1960 comedy tune written by David Lee and Herbert Kretzmer, produced by George Martin, performed by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, that i had often heard on the radio when a child.
"You and i will be as free... tree" is from Paul Anka's 1957 hit song
Diana.
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