Obliviously on he sails

the long version

Since 1990 Calvin Trillin has been The Nation's "deadline poet," contributing every week a piece of verse on the news. There's nothing for improving a satirist's form like having a good target. Case in point: New Yorker regular Trillin, whose earlier verse sampler, Deadline Poet (1994), was mostly less amusing than last year's political cartoons. The present presidential administration, led as it is by the least articulate politician in living memory, seems heaven sent for satire.