Here's What Stuck on the Yarrrrrr's Illustrator
—AI—
has to say about the mental and emotional "mischief" in this book
David Alpaugh rocks language till it tips back—then holds it there, laughing, aching, and thinking all at once. These poems careen from boyhood mischief to cosmic absurdity, from fart jokes to Faustian bargains, from Barbie’s assembly line to “starlets” far beyond Mars. Alpaugh’s wit is both dagger and caress; his satire merciless, his humanity disarming. In one poem he’s jousting with Ed McMahon; in another, mourning with a cadaver dog. Every page tilts between elegy and belly laugh, erudition & play. This is poetry that smells of life, its funk, its farce, its fleeting grace.
Alpaugh's title poem Stuck on the Yarrrrrr... turns a boyhood game of porch rocking into a celebration of joy, risk, and remembrance. What begins in laughter grows into a meditation on balance—between youth and age, play and pain, gravity and grace. The neighborhood chant becomes a chorus for the human spirit. With wit and wonder, Alpaugh shows how a single sound can outsing sorrow. “Stuck on the Yarrrrrr…” leaves us smiling—suspended forever in delight.
A Visit from Publishers Something or Other skewers America’s love affair with spectacle and greed. The poet’s mock-heroic showdown with Ed McMahon turns consumer fantasy into farce and irony into art. The poem stages a suburban comedy where poetry meets publicity stunt—and wins by deadpan knockout. With wit sharper than any jumbo check, Alpaugh exposes the hollow theater of fame and fortune. It’s satire as self-defense—absurd, American, and irresistibly alive.
Cadaver Dog transforms tragedy into quiet reverence through the eyes of a loyal searcher. Gus, the canine hero, becomes both mourner and mirror—sniffing out the ghostly traces of human loss. The poem’s stark imagery and restrained tenderness ache with moral gravity. Here, duty meets devotion; instinct meets elegy. Alpaugh captures the unspoken sorrow of service, where only the dog is left to grieve. A haunting meditation on fidelity, mortality, and the scent of what remains.
Bikini Voices: Stuck on the Yarrrrrr... ends not with resolution but revelation. Alpaugh strips poetry—and self—bare, confessing the vanity, fear, and fierce joy behind creation. The poet becomes both exhibitionist and exile, exposing himself while hiding “behind bikini voices.” What begins in childhood shame swells into adult reckoning with art’s seductive peril. His parting lines accept exposure as destiny: poetry as both surrender and survival. It’s a perfect coda—leaving the reader complicit, moved, and unable to look away.
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