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Daily Dose

From Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

HEROES

"Heroes are immortal, which is why reminders of their mortality must be censored, from the mundane need to be clean to the pressing need to die."

From Chapter 6, On Asymmetry

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Daily Dose

From These Truths: A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore

DARK

"'Gentlemen, the world is dark,' Clarence Darrow once told a jury, leaning over the jury box with his broad-shouldered bulk. 'But it is not hopeless.' There remained the question: Where did hope lie?"

From Chapter Ten, Efficiency and the Masses

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Daily Dose

From As a Man Grows Old, by Italo Svevo, translated by Beryl De Zoete

INDIGNATION

"That indignation procured him the most delightful dreams. Towards morning the tumult of his senses subsided, leaving only an emotional anxiety about his own fate."

From Chapter 10

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Daily Dose

From Leadership in Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

FAME

"The fame they craved, the recognition they sought, bears little resemblance to today's cult of celebrity."

From Epilogue, Of Death and Remembrance

Crazy Rich Clerihew

KEVIN KWAN

Kevin Kwan
Goes on and on
To show the rich
Can be a stitch.

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Robin Buss

SPLENDID

"It was one of those splendid autumn days that sometimes compensate for the lack of the preceding summer, or its brevity."

From Chapter CIX, The Assizes

Clerihew for the Lost Cause

WALKER PERCY

For the slower
Moviegoer
Walker Percy
Asks for mercy.

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Daily Dose

From Essayism: On form, Feeling, and Nonfiction, by Brian Dillon

APHORISM

"The origins of the aphorism are both elevated and abject, as fits a literary form of sublime ambition that is at present in a kind of disgrace."

From page 86

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From Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays, by Chelsea Hodson

BLAME

"Who could blame me for seeing only what I wanted to see? Who could accuse me of anything? I loved everything that didn't love me back; it was the easiest thing in the world"

From The New Love

Clerihew in lieu of Prayer

KHALED HOSSEINI

Khaled Hosseini
Stands with the refugees
And cries aloud to the empty air
(See his Sea Prayer.)

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Daily Dose

From Sea Prayer, by Khaled Hosseini

PRAYER

These are only words.
A father's tricks.
It slays your father,
your faith in him.
Because all I can think tonight is
how deep the sea,
and how vast, how indifferent.
How powerless I am to protect you from it.

All I can do is pray.

Pray God steers the vessel true,
when the shores slip out of eyeshot
and we are a flyspeck
in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting,
easily swallowed.

Because you,
you are precious cargo, Marwan,
the most precious there ever was.

I pray the sea knows this.
Inshallah.

How I pray the sea knows this.

A Caricature

Clerihew of Little Failure

GARY SHTEYNGART

Gary Shteyngart
Has a fine heart
And he's funny,
Believe me, honey.

Daily Dose

From Lake Success, by Gary Shteyngart

SOMEBODY

"Barry wanted to punch somebody, preferably a Nazi, but really anyone would do."

From Chapter 11

Clerihew for a Lost Lady Novelist

ELLEN GLASGOW

Dimmed is the past glow
Of Ellen Glasgow,
Long years under the Barren Ground
And lost to memory, time, renown.

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Daily Dose

From The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass, translated by Ralph Manheim

SLASHED

"Slashed and baggy and powdered, I stood up, ringing my bells."

From Book Three, Madonna 49

Clerihew for Idiots

ELIF BATUMAN

Elif Batuman
Found that she could yawn
In English and Turkish
When men were jerk-ish.

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Daily Dose

From The Idiot, by Elif Batuman

MIS

"The day after my nineteenth birthday, my mother drove me to the Pakistan Airlines annex at JFK: a narrow temporary building with dusty windows, shared by Air Poland. The air Poland logo was a skinny, malnourished-looking birdlike creature. I kept misreading things. ONLY ENTRUST YOUR LUGGAGE TO UNINFORMED PORTERS."

From Part Two, June

Clerihew for the Dean

TAHA HUSSEIN

Taha Hussein
Knew the pain
Of mankind
Being blind.

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From A Gay and Melancholy Sound, by Merle Miller

BEEF

"His wife said, 'I forgive you. I forgave you the first time I met you because at the same time that I wanted to kill you, I wanted to kiss you. I was already in love with you, you bastard. Now come have some cold roast beef...'"

From Part Two, Notes Dictated on the Fifth Day, Chapter One

Clerihew for the Irascible

S. J. PERELMAN

S. J. Perelman
Was sometimes seen to hurl pen,
Paper, typewriter, and ink
Into the nearest drink.

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Daily Dose

From Evolution, by Eileen Myles

WESTERN POEM

purple clouds
my doubts

iridescent
cream, my
loss

purple mountains
my friends

buzzards circling
overhead
my hopes

birds singing
jagged singing
my indecision

wrecked skinny
tree
my past

photographs
I send home
my indiscretion

amber
street
light
my reading

my appetite
my appetite

red striped sky
my confusion

bright yellow
grey sky
my ardor

car lights
my commo
tion

telephone
pole
my wishes

stop sign
my fear

family dollar
family dollar

court house
my opinion

black cloud
white sky
hesitation

black cloud
white sky
bliss

blinking signals
my intentions

black mountains
too many
suggestions

skipping white
lines
my attention

a young cowboy
first saw
the lights

a young cowboy
first saw the
lights

the horns
on your van
my defensive
ness

that ole train
my dreams

that ole train

-- Eileen Myles

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Goodbye to All That, by Robert Graves

PATER

" That my father is a poet, saved me from any false reverence for poets."

From Chapter One

Clerihew for the Dean's December

SAUL BELLOW

Saul Bellow
Did not mellow.
Time could not dim
The dislikes of him.

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Daily Dose

From Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari

SERIOUS

"Sex is child's play; but gender is serious business."

From Chapter 8, There Is No Justice in History, Sex and Gender

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Daily Dose

From If I Were a Suicide Bomber, by Per Aage Brandt, translated by Thom Satterlee

WHAT

"What do I say, what do I do, what
do I mean, I seldom mean anthing
in the world, and when someone
sings salva me, I wonder to myself,
why are you asking the mighty forces
to fish just you out of this soup"

From Poesi, 2010 / Poetry, 2010

Fresh Slops Daily

“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” 
― George Bernard Shaw

Clerihew for the Sharp Point of the Prick

HAROLD BLOOM

The pervasive gloom
Of Harold Bloom
Presumably is mitigated
By the bores he's ventilated.

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Daily Dose

From The Sarah Book, by Scott McClanahan

IF I

"If I knew things would have turned out like this I would have been different.  If I knew things would have turned out like this, I would have been nicer."

From page 185

Clerihew for a Japanese Christan

SHUSAKU ENDO

If Heaven exists,
Somewhere on the lists
Shusaku Endo
Should ascend-o.

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Daily Dose

From The Sarah Book, by Scott McClanahan

SHOUT

“I shouted at her and then she shouted at me.  And then I shouted at her and she shouted at me and then we shouted together.  And then we shouted in other rooms.”

From page 34

A Caricature

A Caricature