"The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find."
That's Walt. Isn't it beautiful? I mean, I realize it doesn't rhyme at the end of every sentence and it isn't written in iambic pentameter, but it's poetry nevertheless. My friend the Judge and I disagree on this point. He's married to rhyme. He insists Walt writes prose. I asked, "are you saying a dirty limerick is more of a poem than Whitman?!?!?!????" Nearly won him over with that rhetorical question. Meh. He can think it's prose. The most poetic prose written. Pick up Leaves of Grass.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is one of the best books I've ever read. It's hysterical black humor. One page will have you laughing so hard at the most absurd thing, and then in one sentence (spoiler alert!) Nately is dead and your guts are ripped out. Give it a shot if you haven't read it.
Winnie-the-Pooh is also hysterical in its own way. I laughed at those stories as a kid, as a teen, as the parent of a baby, toddler and "tween" (ugh, who invents these words?), and again just as a grown-up. I'm quite fond of author A. A. Milne's use of profound capitalization. Read 'em again if it's been a while.
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