Today someone in my Poetry Group at My Blog Catalog asked who were the favorite poets of group members. My favorite is Emily Dickinson although I do like Wordsworth, Frost, Sandburg, Poe and many other of the old-school poets. However, my favorite poem is “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee (June 9, 1922 – December 11, 1941).

“High Flight” is the poem that many television stations put to music and film for their sign off before the days when sign offs were replaced by infomercials. I used to stay up sometimes just to watch the sign off of KTCA, the Twin Cities Public Television Station.

Today when it was brought to memory I searched YouTube to see if anyone had put it on the Internet. I was shocked by the number of High Flight Videos from all over the country and Canada (although I shouldn’t be too shocked about Canada since that was Magee’s home country.) I was very pleasantly surprised by one video. It’s perhaps the most beautiful rendition of the poem I have seen.