A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Buffy Shutt
I Will Read Myself Out of This
How many books can I read in 1460 days?
I didn’t miss the peek-a-boo bra in the Rotunda
or the ten or 12 billionaires of America’s 758 in front of the cabinet
or the Vaquero hat Flotus wore to keep his lips off her.
I didn’t miss my heart racing.
1637 Tulipomania in Holland
1921 Analysis-mania. The good breast and the bad breast.
1964 Beatlemania
1965 She attends the LBJ inauguration ball. She is 15. Only a handful of millionaires.
Snow on the ground. Who doesn’t remember people in boots at The Statler Hilton?
1994 Sex mania. Clinton is the first president to send an email from the White House.
2013 Bacon-mania: Sales climb 9.5% hitting an all-time high of nearly $4 billion.
2017 Bitcoin-mania. 2025 Flotus joins in.
?-2025 Transgender-mania. About 1.14% of the population identifies as transgender.
Read about Moral panic:
A widespread feeling of fear that an evil person or thing
threatens the values, interests and well-being of a community.
Read about Hysteria:
A nervous affection,
occurring almost exclusively in women,
in which the emotions are exaggerated,
will power diminished,
the woman loses control over emotions,
becomes the victim of imaginary sensations.
The chief symptoms are convulsive, tossing movements of the limbs and head,
uncontrollable crying,
a choking sensation as if a ball were lodged in the throat.
Buffy Shutt is a poet living in Los Angeles. She worked to help people in Altadena after the Eaton Fire. She is a citizen. Her debut full-length poetry collection, Recruit to Deny, is now available for pre-sale from Indolent Books and will be published this quarter. Shutt is the author of Memos from the 20th 21st Century (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and animal magnetism (Yavanika Press 2024). Her poems have appeared in Anthropocene, Paper Dragon, Sonic Boom, Door is a Jar, Dodging the Rain, Book of Matches, and Split Lip Magazine, among others. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she worked in Hollywood for 30 years as an executive, marketing features and documentaries.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.
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