nobody loses all the time
"i had an uncle named Sol who was a born failure..."
Note: Today’s edition of Dead Wood (unearthed from the Public Domain) is this utterly perfect poem from e e cummings. It was originally published in 1926 in his collection “Is 5,” and, as always, I’d encourage you to hit the link after the poem and check out the whole book. There are quite a few gems in there. But this one is such a rare and wonderful thing—a poem that made me laugh! I just had to share it with you… TM
nobody loses all the time
nobody loses all the time i had an uncle named Sol who was a born failure and nearly everybody said he should have gone into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable of all to use a highfalootin phrase luxuries that is or to wit farming and be it needlessly added my Uncle Sol’s farm failed because the chickens ate the vegetables so my Uncle Sol had a chicken farm till the skunks ate the chickens when my Uncle Sol had a skunk farm but the skunks caught cold and died and so my Uncle Sol imitated the skunks in a subtle manner or by drowning himself in the watertank but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor Victrola and records while he lived presented to him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and i remember we all cried like the Missouri when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because somebody pressed a button (and down went my Uncle Sol and started a worm farm)
Read more from e.e. cummings’ “is 5” collection at Project Gutenberg.
DEAD WOOD provides excerpts from the years before ideas became “content”. Some editions are serious and thought-provoking. Some are ludicrous or silly. Some are chosen just because they happened to strike us as particularly interesting.
If you have an excerpt of “Dead Wood” you’d like to suggest, email Juke at tonyajuke@gmail.com
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