ABOUT THIS BOOK

As he approaches eighty, Turner Cassity may finally be out of control. His hatchet has never fallen more lethally, meaning if you have the stomach for him he is more enjoyable than ever. Under the blade come Martha Graham, Johann Sebastian Bach, musicologists, tree huggers, Frank Gehry, folk music, folk art of all times and all places, folk… . There are, however, his unpredictable sympathies: Edith Wilson, skyscrapers, Pontius Pilate, Pilate’s legionnaires. He obviously has a soft spot for Pop Culture, although he cannot avoid seeingit de haut en bas.

As usual, he is all over the place geographically. One feels he would slash his wrists before he would write a poem about any city on the traditional Grand Tour. Manaus, Campeche, Trieste, Budapest (as destroyed by Godzilla)—these are his places. He has a disturbing willingness to write on both sides of an issue, resembling in this Bernard Shaw. You have to read very carefully to see whether he tips his hand.

One looks forward to Mr. Cassity’s posthumous poems, when he is beyond the reach of libel. For now, at least, we have Devils & Islands.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Turner Cassity was born in 1929 in Jackson, Mississippi. He is the author of seven collections of poetry and the recipient of numerous prizes and awards. He retired in 1991 as a catalog librarian at the R. W. Woodruff Library, Emory University.

REVIEWS

“He is a guerrilla tactician of piquant humor, waiting patiently in the bushes then pouncing at just the right moment.... His inimitable takes on contemporary life and thought delight even as they deliver their well-aimed stings.”—The Yale Review

“He could be a reincarnation of the spirit of Alexander Pope in the contemporary world. How would such a spirit of the Enlightenment adapt to the media-dominated postmodern world? The answer is ‘easily,’ like an antediluvian alligator to the swimming pool—and with an entertainment value of four stars.”—Magill’s Literary Annual 2008

“The world he so minutely examines may be decadent, but the work it provokes is an intellectual delight.”—Booklist

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
Fantasia on Dummy Keys	000
Before Clocks Were Digital	000
After the Fall	000
Amazonas.com	000
Erich Wolfgang Korngold	000
The Last Newsboy	000
Hitting the Silk	000
Bargains Are by Definition Faustian	000
Opposing Colonizations	000
Robinson Crusoe to Capt. Dreyfus	000
Energy Crises	000
A Course in Sax Education	000
Production Values	000
Gowns by Adrian	000
The Garden of Yellow Jack	000
The Devil and Daedalus	000
Fashions of 1903	000
The Last Cigarette Girl	000
Dance	000
Free Trade in Mitteleuropa	000
Where Is Gutzon Borglum Now That We Need Him?	000
Inventing the Subdivision	000
The Last Elevator Operator, or, Mr. Otis Regrets	000
Edith and Woody and Nancy and Ronnie	000
Fishers of Men	000
Unto Temptation	000
Guidelines for a Cover Illustration	000
Crystal But Not Crystal Ball	000
Models	000
The Last Chaperon	000
Update for Francis Joseph	000
The Passion of 1934	000
Administrating	000
One Third of a Triptych	000
Self-Guided Tour	000
Report of the Monuments Commission	000
Eclogue against Ecology	000
Soldiers Three in the Big Easy	000
Afterward	000