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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE AMERICAN PUZZLE by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS

First Line: I AM THE NEWSPAPER, VIVID AND WONDERFUL
Last Line: I AM THE NEWSPAPER: PRAY TELL ME WHAT I AM.
Subject(s): NEWSPAPERS; JOURNALISM; JOURNALISTS;

I am the Newspaper, vivid and wonderful,
Solemnly ponderous, gorgeously blunderful,
Wildly omniscient and sagely Socratic,
Daring, defiant, progressive, erratic,
High philosophical, bold metaphysical,
Jauntily, flippantly, saucily quizzical,
Coolly unprejudiced, bitterly partisan,
Flaying the millionaire, petting the artisan,
Comic, dramatic, domestic, artistic,
Airily ethical, brutally fistic,
Slave of the counting-room, foe of hypocrisy,
Knave of the nabob and boss of democracy,
Nastily sensual, saintly sermonic,
Partly in earnest and wholly sardonic,
Not quite a buzzard, assuredly not a lamb,
I am the Newspaper: pray tell me what I am.



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