Capriccios: A Liberal Arts Adventure in Verse

By Pamela Martin

As indicated by my subtitle, this book is an adventure in the subjects commonly studied in the humanities or the liberal arts curriculum that I pursued at the University of Chicago. Each capriccio can be enjoyed, on the one hand, as fun and, on the other hand, to explore the range and breadth of a traditional liberal arts education. The book also can be didactic and can teach and expand a thoughtful persons vocabulary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524557102

Pamela Martin

Pamela Martin, youngest child of six, was born in Lincolnshire just after the Second World War, a time when there was no inside plumbing or central heating, when there were few cars and children played safely in the streets; a time when entertainment was getting together with the community in which she lived, safety and love came from neighbours who shared their last pot of tea with neighbours. Pamela has had three lifetimes of exciting experiences. She has been living and working for seventeen years in Montreal, Canada, and twelve years in Florida, before retiring back in Lincolnshire to write, paint and breed ragdoll cats. Her two sons were her motivation to explore the world and show them just how life must be embraced with both hands. The different cultures and life experiences have been the rich colour palette from which to weave the wonderful patchwork of her characters' personalities. Some of these personalities and stories are passed down from her family, thankfully in an era before conversation was a lost art.

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Copyright © 2016 by Pamela Martin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover design and illustrations by Kathleen Hardy

Rev. date: 11/04/2016

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CONTENTS

THE BEGINNING

Promises to Keep

Mary, Queen of Scots

Dervish

A Freudian Slip

Epitaph

Ersatz Love?

Intoxication

Paean

Racecar Bob

An Interview

Talisman?

Prescience

The Love That Lasts and Lasts

Alice Roosevelt

Occupational Hazard

Frango Mints

Thanksgiving

March is a Charm

London Fog

Carpe Diem

Miss Alacrity

Solitude

A Weighty Matter

The Illiad and the Oddyssey

Purple Hearts

The Hamburger

Dehydration

A Great Dane

The Socratic Method

Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

The Rape of the Lock

Arson

King Richard II

Clueless

Supply-Side Economics?

Edgar

I Sing the Body Electric

Wanderlust

A Sticky Situation

Guilt Trip

What Goes Up

Must Come Down

October 16th

The Fountain of Truth

Comic Relief

Hearing Voices

Post-Painterly Abstraction

The Mechanics of Writing

Awake!

THE MIDDLE

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

Lactose Free

Osculation

Crocodile Tears

Viola

Romanticism

Zoo Mass

Secular Humanism

Platitudes-a-Plenty

Free Will

Masonic Temple

The Eternal Present

A Night Mare

Keynesian Economics

Sanctuary

Bibliomania

Chastisements

Triage

The First Litterbugs

On the Brink

Selfish Gene

The Hanoverian Regression

Give Peace a Chance

American Realism

Stockholm Syndrome

The W.C.T.U.

Heliocentrism

Dust Jackets

The Cooking Jean

Baccalaureate

De jure

Ethnic Cleansing

The Domestic Cat

NV

What Does Delaware?

Flockheart

Robin Hood

THE END

The Vortex of History

A Complimentary Color

Strings Attached

The Ghost of Christmas Past

The Insouciant Gaul

The Belle of Amherst

Shortchanged

The Oedipus Complex

Plate Tectonics

Global Warming

A Baker’s Dozen

The Wisdom of the