New at IWP Books: Leonard Bacon’s Ph.D.s Male and Female Created He Them. From Sophia Trenton:

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And he was very greatly to be pitied,
 And yet more pitiable, alas! he knew it,
For he had been irrevocably committed
 To talk about a thing and not to do it.
Men suffer thus however nimble-witted,
 And find not, though they seek peace and ensue it,
Their minds in a perpetual bereavement,
Wanting the strong embraces of achievement.

Not that he was not highly publicatious,
 Each year a volume more or less he tallied —
The simulacrum of a book, but, gracious!
 What reader e’er so hardy ever rallied
His forces to the sticking-point audacious,
 And faced that ghost of learning thin and pallid?
Ah! never, never shall that reader be
Saving perhaps another Ph.D.,

Who with great show of learning shall refute
 That which already has been self-refuted,
And multiply the matter in dispute,
 Merely to be himself in turn disputed.
So rushes on the circular pursuit,
 And will, I fear, till Gabriel’s horn is tooted.
But the interruption of the Day of Doom
Once o’er, I’m sure the champions will resume.
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