Philip Roth – A Poem From The Shelves

As many of you may know, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Philip Roth died recently. The following poem, in homage to him, uses only titles of some of his works. Reading myself and others Our Gang Everyman Deception Indignation Nemesis Shop talk The facts The plot against America American pastoral The great American novel The humbling The ghost writer Letting go Goodbye, Columbus Exit ghost  

One hundred years ago, a letter arrived in Gardiner….

Written from Columbia University, the letter congratulated a Gardiner author on winning the Pulitzer Prize for biography.  The author, who compiled scrapbooks of her family life and day-to-day goings on, dutifully pasted the letter on the next available page in her Family Log and moved right along…. Neither she nor the letter made note of the fact that that she and her sister were the first women to win a Pulitzer.  In fact, as 1917 was the inaugural year of the most celebrated prize for literature, the event made little more than a tiny ripple in Laura E. Richard’s daily life. …

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