{"id":28991,"date":"2018-04-15T10:51:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T14:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=28991"},"modified":"2022-04-01T20:21:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-02T00:21:06","slug":"filthy-rotten-t-s-eliot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2018\/04\/filthy-rotten-t-s-eliot.html","title":{"rendered":"Filthy Rotten T.S. Eliot, the Mofo"},"content":{"rendered":"

When my staff of thousands sent me this book cover, APRIL IS A MOTHERFUCKER,<\/em> by none other than T.S. Eliot, it put me in mind of Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917,<\/em> which includes Eliot\u2019s fithy rotten early poems. They are so much fun, despite their sometime racism, that they naturally give the P.C. police conniptions. The staffer, who prefers to remain anonymous, points out that the lovely fake book cover, by riffing on one of Eliot\u2019s most famous lines, \u201cis as real as an internet blog can make it.\u201d And now, for your enjoyment, here is the loveliest of the entertaining real stuff:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

from Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917<\/em><\/a>
[edited with annotations by Christopher Ricks]<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The Colombo and Bolo<\/em> verses are the really dirty stuff. Here are some samples:
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Postscript: <\/strong>April 25:<\/p>\n

Ah, Spring<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

“Finally the daffodils
are here,\u201d said a friend,
\u201cand all that malarkey.\u201d
It\u2019s a steal-worthy line
making perfectly clear
that spring has come
and that a great matter
like the season\u2019s arrival
faces scoffers like us
who prefer not to dote.
April isn’t the cruelest
month. I\u2019d say it\u2019s May
when daffodil trumpets
choose to wilt and die.
\u2014 JH<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my staff of thousands sent me this book cover, APRIL IS A MOTHERFUCKER, by none other than T.S. Eliot, it put me in mind of Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917, which includes Eliot\u2019s fithy rotten early poems. They are so much fun, despite their sometime racism, that they naturally give the P.C. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,18,4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-political-culture","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/APRIL-IS-A-MOTHERFUCKER-cover-365.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-7xB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28991"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50495,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28991\/revisions\/50495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}