From Jay Nordlinger’s Impromptus today: “Eileen Simpson, wife of John

Berryman, died. Her obituarist quoted Delmore Schwartz as saying, ‘All poets

’ wives have rotten lives.’ Did he mean it to rhyme? Was it accidental?”

Jay: No, not accidental, these are actually the first two lines of a poem.

The rest of it goes: “What could possibly be worse / Than a husband hooked

on verse?”