"The Jester's Magma" - The American Scholar

"The Jester's Magma" - The American Scholar

At last month’s poetry practice, Coach Lehman encouraged everyone to write a poem using the title of a book, play, or movie already in existence. I said that the poem didn’t need to have anything to do with the work whose title you have appropriated. Among my suggestions were War and Peace, The Immoralist, Persuasion, Light in August, or All About Eve. No other instructions except to “incorporate one formal requirement device, be it a rhyme sche…