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Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada
My virtue is that I say what I think, my vice that what I think doesn't amount to much.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Revisiting The Prophetic Verse Of Eve Merriam’s ‘The Nixon Poems’


Four years before Watergate, Eve Merriam published The Nixon Poems, a collection dedicated “to the Constitution of the United States of America.” It is one woman’s personal condemnation of an administration.

Merriam's poems about Nixon accurately capture the reality of life in the age of Trump :
When the new Presidentintroduced his cabinethe sponsored themon evening primetimepresenting them as men who all have“that extra dimension”and if the Presidential phraseseemed fussily familiar or shopwornfrom being bandied aboutfor brands of cigarettes cough drops shaving cream containerswell what’s wrong witha bona fide business connection?

or this:
I lead the crusade against water pollution by a secret plan that
will be revealed at the proper timeI invite Billy Graham to bless the official White House
bowling alleyAnd I do not change

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