Posts by David Benjamin
“Small moveable forts and magazines”
by David Benjamin “… You may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed… ” — Henry David Thoreau MADISON, Wis.— It was…
Read MoreThe road to bitterness
The road to bitterness When I was in tenth grade, I developed an infatuation with James Drought, an author whose yellow-backed Avon paperback, The Secret, I found on a revolving rack at the drugstore. Drought’s autobiographical novel—more of an extended diatribe—exuded the sort of educated rage and gloom that appealed to a cautiously rebellious and……
Read More“Delay is the deadliest form of denial”
by David Benjamin “… Having seen Trump survive too many other scandals that should have ended his disgraceful political career, I cannot be overly sanguine that he has finally reached his rightful reckoning. The cancer has been exposed but could still continue to metastasize.” — Max Boot, The Washington Post MADISON, Wis.—Donald Trump’s political epitaph…
Read MoreWhy not the “Yankee Doodle Dandies”?
by David Benjamin “After years of contemplation, Washington announced in January that the team’s nickname search had been cut down to seven options: Armada, Brigade, Red Hogs, Presidents, Commanders, RedWolves, and Defenders.” — Jack Dougherty, Sportscasting MADISON, Wis.—I’m wearing a t-shirt that honors the 1932 Jersey City Skeeters. This somewhat silly but unique monicker derives…
Read More“Takes soap and water for to keep it clean”
by David Benjamin “The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps… But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white…
Read MoreThe “old days”: Good, bad or just old?
by David Benjamin “Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer./ That is what I’d truly like to be,/ ’Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer wiener,/ Everyone would be in love with me.” ―The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song MADISON, Wis. — Every paycheck I got during my employment at the Waunakee Canning Company identified…
Read MoreThe mirage of the market
by David Benjamin When I began writing essays, I took advantage of a captive market. I was both editor and a multifaceted reporter for a Massachusetts weekly, The Mansfield News. Both to gratify the urge to express myself and to fill the great white void of column inches in each issue, I assigned myself three……
Read MoreTwenty-four poems I love (and one of mine)
by David Benjamin “‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/ The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/ The frumious Bandersnatch!’” ― Lewis Carroll MADISON, Wis. — For three years in high school, I carried around a dog-eared copy of Louis Untermeyer’s Great Poems anthology. In the course of this autodidactic…
Read MoreShooting minnows in a barrel
by David Benjamin “The solution lies in stronger families, more supportive communities, I would argue, renewed faith… We’ve stopped teaching values in so many of our schools. Now we’re teaching wokeness. We’re indoctrinating our children with things like CRT, telling… some children they’re not equal to others and they’re the cause of other people’s problems.” …
Read MoreThe agent rejection I’d like to see
The gateway to publication and success as a writer is the “literary agent.” There are hundreds of these, mostly in New York City and each harboring strongly held “genre” preferences. This edition of Write Away illuminates the unsubtle art of rejection by literary agencies, a baptism of blood that every aspiring author must eventually encounter.……
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