“Who ever heard of a bad poet committing suicide?”
……………….. – Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos
Berryman off a Midwest span.
Carbon monoxide, Sexton’s plan.
Lysol cocktail for Charlotte Mew.
The same for Vachel Lindsay, too.
Teasdale absorbed sleeping pills.
Chatterton—arsenic for his ills.
Crane off the Orizaba’s stern.
Hemingway by a shotgun’s burn.
Plath in an oven chose to go.
Parker thought it over and said, “No.”
So many by their own hand dead.
Me? From old age in my own bed.
Anthony Harrington
Anthony Harrington was born and raised in Philadelphia where he received a degree in Philosophy from St. Charles Seminary. His verse has appeared in Midwest Poetry Review, The Classical Outlook, Western Humanities Review, The Saturday Review, Light, and The Random House Treasury of Light Verse among other publications. He is an associate editor of the poetry magazine Calamaro. He has made his home in the Atlanta area for the last four decades, and currently lives in Johns Creek, Georgia, with his wife Natalie.
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