Karma, Dharma, Pudding & Pie

An erudite and witty look at the absurdity of the world around us from a brilliant poet and a great cartoonist.

Philip Appleman―award-winning poet, novelist, scholar, editor, social critic, and Darwin expert―turns his hand to humorous and sometimes irreverent verse in this, his eighth book of poetry. Appleman’s poetry, exquisitely formed, is a delightful and accomplished romp through such lofty themes as sex, religion, and aging that gleefully skewers established thinking.

X. J. Kennedy writes in the foreword: “Appleman is a master of the sonnet, the terse rhymed epigram, and even that fiendishly ingenious form, the double dactyl. To watch him sling words is to be richly regaled.”

from A Simple Explanation for Everything

When Puritans filled all New England with dread,

Hunting down women whose thoughts they

abhorred,

They strung up the witches until they were dead.

Why did they kill?

They killed for the Lord.