Ruth Lilly, heiress to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical fortune, has donated $100 million or more to Poetry magazine, leaving the world of philanthropy and the world of poetry agog at the size of the gift.

— Boston Globe, November 19

Thou still unravish’d bride of priciness,

Thou child of outtakes and directors’ cuts,

Sylvan DVD, who canst thus express

A flick more sweetly than our VHS:

What many-button’d legend haunts thy menu pad

Of random play or freeze frame, or of both,

In Best Buy or the aisles of RadioShack?

What jammed cassette? What mechanism loth?

What gnarled unravell’d tape? What picture bad?

What struggle to rewind? What need to track?

Snoop’s CDs are bad, but Eminem’s rhymes

Are worse; thus, ye sallow rapper, rap on;

Not to the musical ear, but, more engrim’d,

Pipe to the vulgar ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, above the bass I canst not grasp

Thy words, nor ever can the notes be sharp;

Bold system, never, never canst be lulled,

Though jarr’d by partygoers, do not skip;

I cannot turn thee down, for thou hast not a dial,

Forever wilt thou blare, and neighbors harp!

Ah, happy, comfy couch! that cannot rend

Thy cloth, nor ever stain’d nor be defiled;

And happy stuffed recliner, full reclin’d,

Synthetic-leather bound, forever occupied;

More happy sports TV! happy, happy sports!

Forever snoozing, never feeling strain’d,

Forever with a place to put my glass;

O all inferior seating counts for naught,

That leaves a back high-agonized and pain’d,

A chip-strewn lap, and a numbed ass.

Who is this lumb’ring slowly to my right?

To what green signal, O miserable tripe,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the light?

Behold my silken paint job, my racing stripe.

What wretched SUV or four-by-four,

What shoddy wreck with baleful top-end speed,

Is worthy of this ride, this pious Merc?

And, crappy Ford Capri, thy engine evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to heed

That thou art broken down, ya frickin’ jerk.

O Attic gear! Fair stuff! with nevermore

A monthly payment, no Visa overwrought,

With lifetime warranties, delivered to the door;

Thou, high-end goods, dost lead us to cavort

As doth Britney Spears (now that’s a gal!)

When usage shall the cut-price products waste,

Thou shalt remain, like new, still good to go

And ours, a boon to man, to whom thou say’st,

" Booty is truth, truth booty — that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. "