Deadline Poet, Or, My Life as a Doggerelist: Or, My Life as a Doggerelist

By Calvin Trillin

Book Overview

Could there be anyone else who was inspired to write poetry by the presence of John Sununu? Maybe so, but only Calvin Trillin came up with a piece of verse called If You Knew What Sununu. Ever since it appeared in print, in 1990, he has been a weekly gadfly in verse for The Nation, delighting readers with his rhyming observations on the news of the day. As his deadline approached every week, his inspiration came from, among many others, George Bush (You did your best in your own way, / The way of Greenwich Country Day) and H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Saddam Hussein and Jerry Brown and Clarence Thomas and Ross Perot and Princess Diana and Zoe Baird (She'd done this deed to get au paired) and Robert Dole and someone called Wanderin' Willie Clinton, who sings the I got the movin' to the middle 'cause it's slip'ry on the edges blues. Here, in prose as sparkling as the verse that accompanies it, Trillin describes his evolution from a special-occasions poet into a deadline poet, and comments on the events that inspired his weekly verse. The result is an irresistible entertainment that also turns out to be an antic history of three years of American life that were particularly rich in material for someone who describes his job this way: The news presents a motley little band / That I observe, tomato in my hand.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374135525
• ISBN13: 9780374135522
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

thanks a million mr trillin

If your load is heavy, here's a load lightner, If your life needs some light, Read this gosh darn book now, and again tonight.But, of all the humble souls, you missed but one. The book I finished reading, it's closed, readings done....Mr. T. Where the hell is Henry K., but let's call him "Hank" Maybe discussing his IQ with "so new nue" Or waiting in line at the humility bank?

wonderful

I wish I could write this review in verse. That is what the book really calls for. Failing that I will simply say that the only trouble with this book is that you find yourself annoying everyone around you by constantly reading it aloud. It should not be missed.