Tag: writing
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Three Satirists Walk into a Daily White House Press Briefing
“Thank you all for coming, like dogs, again today. And thanks for agreeing to purchase and wear my latest campaign hat with the slogan, “Making Media Grovel Again.”
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Three Poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Here are three poems by a neglected (some would say deservedly so) Wisconsin born and raised American poet– Ella Wheeler Wilcox, whose late 19th and early 20th Century verse is full of rhyme and meter and “sentimental” Victorian optimism, the very thing the Modernists rebelled against. And yet many of her poems have a witty, […]
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The Human Wall (a poem)
Because no one will pay to build His WALL– Not Mexico, not Congress, not even the Wall Street Journal or Faux News, not anyone— The PRESIDENT will send soldiers with guns To make sure Mexico does not invade. Nat. Guard will guard the desert (without shade) As long as Trump proclaims that they will stand On […]
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Introducing Rhymed Couplets in honor of the Trump Administration . . .
“Tough Love” Trump will issue tariffs in “a very loving way.” (He thinks that we will love him even when we lose our pay.)
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William Blake: “Auguries of Innocence”
[JK: An augury is an omen and this is a political poem because . . . today is Blake’s birthday and the poem details connections, relationships ecological and human we too often, especially in the halls of power, fail to acknowledge. The first four lines are famous but we often neglect the rest of this […]
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Robinson Jeffers: “Be Angry at the Sun”
[JFK: Here’s a poetic perspective on politics some may call cynical, some may say stoic. Jeffers referred to his philosophical distance from people as “inhumanism.” This should not, however, be confused with inhumane-ism. Jeffers built a house of stone in Carmel, CA overlooking the Pacific in the days before Carmel was a haven for wealth […]
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Rumple Oxbridge: “The More War Sonnet for Afghanistan”
By Rumple Oxbridge, liberal lyricist Trump has a plan to fix Afghanistan: more war will do what war has not before. It is a plan not hard to understand his “war cabinet” advises–War fails? Try more. Eventually this war will have to end but stopping war before we win is like un-masculine and feminist. […]
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Poem: “Death of a Journalist”
By John Frederick Kaufman Sick of screens that blind with light, I’ll sing myself to sleep and let all facts arrive to you undeniably as night. I watch the snow fall silently and do not care to count. I don’t want to tell you anymore what it all amounts to.
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April: Poetry & Mud
A poet in a bad mood can ruin a reputation, as T.S. Eliot did for April when he called it “the cruellest month”, adding an extra letter l for emphasis. I prefer what Robert Frost had to say about April in is his poem “Two Tramps in Mud Time.” Mud time is what rural people […]
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A Poem: “Fists and Flags”
By John Frederick Kaufman Fists and Flags “America first!” the president cried and raised his fist to punch the sky while someone punched a fascist in the head: the fist is first of many lies, grip of welcome weaponized. In my hand I hold a pen to strike out the wall-like words that slam […]
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“Is public virtue dead?”: Shelley’s “Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things”
By John Frederick Kaufman What better poem to turn to than one recently discovered in England, a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1811 when he was just 18 and a student at Oxford University. No copy of the poem existed in the public realm until this month, when Oxford’s Bodleian Library made it available online. The […]
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Rumple Oxbridge: “In Ignorance We Cannot Trust”
By Rumple Oxbridge (imaginary rhymer-in-residence) What Gov. Walker learned, at last, is this: ignorance is only bliss if ignorance is all there is — “In God We Trust” will soon go bust if you think God thinks for us. [For the NY Times’ Frank Bruni column, 800 words of prose on the relationship between Gov. Walker, Republican […]
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Poem for the International Day of Peace
“International Day of Peace (“Peace Day”) is observed around the world each year on 21 September. Established in 1981 by resolution 36/37, the United Nations General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples. Furthering the Day’s mission, the General Assembly voted […]
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Reflections on “postmodernism” upon the death of Professor Ihab Hassan
Though perhaps only of interest to students of American literature, the death this past week of former UW-Milwaukee English professor Ihab Hassan made news because he is credited for creating the term “postmodernism” to describe a style of thinking and writing prominent in the latter half of the 20th century, say after the trauma of […]
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Riverboat Sam: “Robot Love Not Worth It”
By Riverboat Sam, The Pacific’s technical specialist/digital skeptic In my quite distant prime, if a man wanted to buy a woman for a while or longer there were cultural institutions he could avail himself of. Or if he was wealthy and not a total beast, a marriage proposal might do the trick. But soon, all a man (or […]
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Rumple Oxbridge: “Ode to Jack, My Apolitical Dog”
(Photo by Jocelyn Augustino (This image is from the FEMA Photo Library.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons) By Rumple Oxbridge (The Pacific’s imaginary rhymer-in-residence) My dog is apolitical as dirt. Jack licks anyone whose hand is warm and open as a flirt. More democratic than the Democrats, Jack barks only at the cruel. Will he bless or […]
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