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Required Reading

A sampling of what Harvard people are saying, and what is being said about Harvard, in the press.

Gift Suggestions

Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of the Afro-American Studies Department, has been writing a lot lately for the New York Times Book Review. His most pleasantly surprising submission, however, came last week with a clever poem that, no doubt, bears many messages about literature and modern culture. Let us know if you figure out what they are.

About suffering they were always wrong--

Forgive me, Auden, but we know,

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Their works, like Queequeg's pipe belong

To Backward times we must outgrow.

As Christmas gifts, please bear in mind

Such literary classics may

Seem safe enough until you find

They've led your little ones astray.

Where children are concerned, I charge

Such models should not be on view:

Their dismal lives are, by and large,

A roll call of what not to do.

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