Articles by Jerome Shea
Jerome Shea is an emeritus professor of English at the University of New Mexico, where he still teaches his classical tropes course every fall and his prose style course every spring. He has been the Weekend Wonk since January of 2007. His email is [email protected].
The Fab Four and Other Musical Reflections
December 30, 2012
No, not that Fab Four. Be patient. Hush. The Sheas just got back from a typically wonderful week on Cape Cod, with a weekend family reunion on Great East Lake in Maine thrown in. Wish you all could have joined us. On the Cape we went to the Barnstable County Fair. More rides than last year, but …
High Culture and Pop Culture
December 17, 2012
All the while that I was wrestling with issues reflective of Steve Goodman, Francis Thompson, and Joyce Kilmer, to name three—those people who are known mostly for just one work, be it good (Goodman, Thompson) or not so good (Kilmer)—I was having a running discussion with my friend Joe Kolupke, …
Metonymy and Synecdoche
December 17, 2012
A while back I wrote about metaphor (Metaphors Be With You) and its poor relation, simile. Now it is time to talk about metonymy and synecdoche. Especially metonymy, which I am determined to pin down once and for all. (Free wrestling metaphor, wonkees!) And it should be so simple. But first let’s …
More One-off Poets
June 10, 2012
So you say you never heard of “The Hound of Heaven”? Fair enough. In this go-round we get a bit more modern. Well, one of our poets is early 19th century, but the other two are early 20th century. The first poem and poet some of you might not recognize, but another I can guarantee you …
One-off Poets
June 3, 2012
“One-off Poets” is the best title I can come up with, because—see Steve Goodman—I am still reluctant to denigrate them with the term “one-hit wonders.” This week I want to return to Ernest Dowson and Francis Thompson, two Victorians who glimmered for a moment and were gone. …
Steve Goodman
May 28, 2012
I was going to title this wonk “One-Hit Wonders,” but to my mind there is something chintzy about the phrase, something slightly disrespectful, and Steve Goodman deserves a lot better than that. We’ll get to the late Steve Goodman in a minute, which will give you time to try to place the …
Swamp Cooler
May 20, 2012
If you are reading this wonk in my neck of the woods, the American Southwest, you can stop right now and go back to Facebook. In fact, wherever the climate is very hot and very dry you, too, can probably skip it, at least if the term “swamp cooler” or “evaporative cooler” is familiar to you. But a …
L'envoi, EMD
May 14, 2012
Maybe I’m just a wuss after all. After all, I survived EMD as did so many others who were not physically crippled or emotionally scarred by the experience. And it wasn’t the physical labor, the “hoppin’ like a bunny,” that made the pre-load such hell. In fact, I regret …
Hoppin’ Like a Bunny
April 29, 2012
One problem that I had with the job at EMD—or, rather, that the job had with me—was that, at 33, I was about ten years older than the other guys. Troublemaker. Malcontent. I was bad news in the same way that a 33-year-old draftee would be bad news in the army even if he was as fit as a …
Easy Money
April 22, 2012
I have had the usual run of jobs to support my real life. I have driven tractors, forklifts, and trucks—dump trucks, delivery trucks, garbage trucks. I have done farm work and construction work and warehouse work. I’m not averse to physical labor, but when my grown-up job, teaching, finally became …