American Suite by Steven G. Kellman

These poems are the love child of Ogden Nash and your Am Lit Survey professor, the one who told the same jokes over and over but whom you adored anyway because he was so smart and he loved his work so much. Everybody’s here, from Phillis Wheatley to Philip Roth, and no one is spared, not even the Robert Frost who said, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I / took them both.” Readin’, writin’, and razzle-dazzle are the mainstays of the humanities, and all three are abundant in this witty rollicker of a guide to everything you missed out on as you snoozed through class—enjoy, you slacker, you.

–David Kirby

A voracious bibliophile, Kellman gives every book its trial. His brief United States in verse, puts Twain and Whitman in reverse. Phillis Wheatly finds her voice while she welcomes Bill DuBois. Norman Mailer brawls and boozes as Saul Bellow counts the bruises. Kellman answers what is right:  some are in and some are out, all of history is a plight.

–Ilan Stavans