Political Fun with Words
Poetry. I’m thinking about, no, reading, poetry. Deadline poetry to be exact. Deadline poetry written by Calvin Trillin, who is the designated Deadline Poet at The Nation. (He also writes for The New Yorker, and his short book About Alice is a gem–it’s about his wife Alice.)
Deadline poetry is essentially poetry written on deadline that captures some little bit in the news that day in poetic form, generally in rhyme. Given that Trillin writes for The Nation, most of his poems take shots at Republicans and rich people, but he’s not unwilling to take a shot or two at those on his side of the aisle. And so it was that on the day that Hillary Rodham Clinton went on The Today Show to defend Mr. Clinton at the beginning of what Trillin refers to as “the . . . unpleasantness,” he penned the following:
And so it’s up to our Ms. Rodham
To prove Bill’s White House isn’t Sodom.
It’s left to this adroit señora
To show that it is just Gomorrah.