* * *
We let Gus read both these poems—the “Ode to a Jackass” and “Shadowy—Under My Window”—and Gus called the Shadowy stuff too highbrow. But Gus doesn’t know “highbrow” poetry when he reads it. Neither one is regular, lollypop highbrow literature. We have before us a recent copy of “Current Opinion” containing the following howl from the highbrow poet, Carl Sandburg:
My shirt is a token and a symbol
More than a lover for sun and rain,
My shirt is a signal
And a teller of souls.
I can take off my shirt and tear it
And so make a ripping, razzly noise,
And the people will say,
“Look at him tear his shirt.”