2025,  2024,  2023,  2022,  2021,  2020,  2019,  2018,  2017,  2016,  2015,  2014,  2013,  2012,  2011,  2010,  2009,  2008,  2007,  2006,  2005,  2004,  2003,  2002,  2001,  2000,  1999,  1998,  1997,  1996,  1995,  1994,  1993,  1992,  1991,  1990,  1980s,  INKPOTS & DAYDREAMS,  MACHINE  COOTIES,  MISATTRIBUTED  QUOTES 



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 “ HAVING  lately seen in print some poems ascribed to me 
 which I never wrote, and some of my own inaccurately copied, 
 I thought it would not be improper to publish, in this little 
 volume, all the verses of which I am the author. ” 
 —  James Beattie, 1777  — 


 “ SEVERAL  poems I would willingly have withdrawn, 
 if it were not almost impossible to extricate what has been 
 once caught and involved in the machinery of the press. ” 
 —  Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850  — 


 “ THOSE  laconics or paragraphs which occasionally 
 appear over the Compiler’s name, have been inserted 
 more to fill a vacant space than with any intention 
 of obtruding his own writings upon the public. ” 
 —  Edward Parsons Day, 1883  — 


 “ I HAVE  left out a great many poems that would have betrayed 
 my identity... Why then publish? I have no right to count on 
 a long life and I am not willing to be ‘edited, revised, and 
 corrected’... I feel towards my poems as many women do 
 towards their weak children; and treasure them because if 
 they were conceived in grief they healed my heart. After the 
 first smart of a new loss was softened, next to writing my 
 greatest comfort was reading, and I did not then seek great 
 authors: I sought minor Poets — of whom I dare hope to be 
 one. Could I but be a like comfort to some sorrowing hearts 
 I should feel my life-griefs had not been in vain.  ” 
 —  Opal, 1874  — 



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PRE·RAMBLE

Finally, I am offering this archive to the world, albeit with quite a bit of embarrassment. Please don’t judge too harshly. Some of these items were written long ago for family, friends, and coworkers to use in personal projects, such as greeting cards and office newsletters. Many were written as cheap filler and honeypots for The Quote Garden. Quite a few are from my personal journals. Thus far in my life, not much has really been written with quality as the primary goal; almost everything has been composed in haste, with whatever spare time I could find. Writing has been merely a hobby, a diversion. Sometime soon I would like to make time to give it a more serious attempt. The type of content I’ve written to this point, there were words for such writers back in the day — paragrapher, poetaster, scribbler, versifier, etc. I want to ascend beyond that. But for now, here are the results of many years frolicking, provided for reference, because to this day I still receive questions about the pseudonymous authors and unauthorized modified content that wanders contagiously around the interwebs. —December 2023