Cody Walker
Everywhere in Enormous Numbers Turkeys Will Be Dying
It’s 1:30 in the morning in Michigan — so, Thanksgiving, technically — and my tiny, flailing daughter is wide awake. I do what I can — I talk to her in rhyme, or I half-sing tracks from The Velvet Underground…
Double Double, Part 1 (Dactyls)
I’ve been seeing double lately — which, considering the assignments I’ve been giving my students, makes sense. One class has been writing double dactyls; the other class, double abecedarians. My original idea was to combine my thoughts on the two…
Thinkin’ About Lincoln (and Whitman, and Obama)
It’s an odd election that finds both Lincoln and Whitman coming up short and that imagines Slurpees (“delicious drinks,” according to Obama) as a means to bridge partisan differences. And then there’s the whole question as to who really won.…
McGonagall Is Dead! Dead, Dead, Dead!
William McGonagall — “The Great McGonagall,” “Poet and Tragedian of Dundee” — died on this date in 1902. He was buried in a pauper’s grave — and now, more than a century later, his autographed verses sell for thousands of…
All Apologies, or, Watching and Wondering
This past Friday I attended Yom Kippur services with a Jewish Renewal community in Ann Arbor. Judaism isn’t my tradition — I was raised a Unitarian, which, in my experience, is a bit like being brought up in a Comparative…
