Oh, What a Luxury by Garrison Keillor

Although he has edited several anthologies of his favorite poems, O, What a Luxury: Verses Lyrical, Vulgar, Pathetic & Profound forges a new path for Garrison Keillor, as a poet of light verse. He writes — with his characteristic combination of humor and insight — on love, modernity, nostalgia, politics, religion, and other facets of daily life. Keillor’s verses are charming and playful, locating sublime song within the humdrum of being human.

These poems are about places — Kansas, Sunset Boulevard, Seattle (“everything is uphill in Seattle”), Minnesota, Manhattan (“If the Oyster Bar is fresh out of oysters/ We’ll take the subway up to the Cloisters”) — fatherhood (“That old man in the garage once let loose a great barrage”), and odes to Mozart, onion soup, plumbers, the importance of honking your own horn, and the Republican lady from Knoxville who bought her brassieres by the boxful.

And of course love:
“Love is the universal sport
The night is dark and life is short
The heart is open, always willing,
The touch of skin is so fulfilling.
Darling, when I look at you
Touch is push and push is shove
I’m in love.”