HISTORY WAS MADE ON OUR SITE ON 3/2/25: THIS WAS A FIRST!
The week of 3/2/25 saw the first time we ever had a guest poet showcased as the writer of one of our Featured Poems of the Week!
The guest poet that week? It was none other than Nancy Friedman, "Writer, name developer, brand critic. lapsed journalist, year-round bay swimmer" -- and all-around logophile -- and you can find her on Substack, HERE, as well as other social media platforms. She publishes weekly posts on topics related to corporate naming & branding, language peculiarities, words of the week, online link-fests, and more! If you, too, are a lover of words, be sure to subscribe to her posts!
Just before the week starting on 3/2, she penned "The new New Colossus," a timely hybrid take-off of "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley and "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus. I loved it so much, I thought I'd share it here!
The week of 3/2/25 saw the first time we ever had a guest poet showcased as the writer of one of our Featured Poems of the Week!
The guest poet that week? It was none other than Nancy Friedman, "Writer, name developer, brand critic. lapsed journalist, year-round bay swimmer" -- and all-around logophile -- and you can find her on Substack, HERE, as well as other social media platforms. She publishes weekly posts on topics related to corporate naming & branding, language peculiarities, words of the week, online link-fests, and more! If you, too, are a lover of words, be sure to subscribe to her posts!
Just before the week starting on 3/2, she penned "The new New Colossus," a timely hybrid take-off of "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley and "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus. I loved it so much, I thought I'd share it here!
| The new New Colossus, by Nancy Friedman Not unlike Ozymandias, ancient wreck, With rheumy eyes and cheek of third-rate bronze, And grand illusions of a thousand cons In which some fawning sap picks up the check, This mob-connected grifter, faux exec, Who’s tweeted through ten thousand sleepless dawns, Now conjures up some gilded echelons And spies more treasure he can turn to dreck. “Cough up the cash!” taunts he Through puckered lips. “Give me your liars, your whores, Your preening fraudsters yearning to run free, The wretched excess of your shameless shores. Send these, your bloated billionaires, to me: Just five mil gets you through my golden doors.”  For info on Nancy Friedman, click HERE. | By Percy Bysshe Shelley: I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” By Emma Lazarus: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” |
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