Uncommon times call for uncommon wisdom. It’s inspiring to hear from people who’ve graduated from the school of hard knocks, yet kept a sense of humor. People like Twain, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde. People who've said the thing so well that we all wish we'd said it. People who've been there, done that, and refuse to sugarcoat what they've learned. People who know, as Sherry Hochman puts it, that "Every day is a gift—even if it sucks."

From Kathryn and Ross petras, curators of craziness (and surprising smarts), comes a timely collection of reassuring reality:

"Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?"—John Barrymore

"October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February." —Mark Twain

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."—Mother Teresa

"When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes."—Dylan Thomas

"If you think you have it tough, read history books."—Bill Maher

And Voltaire: "Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats."
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Writing very bad poetry requires talent. It helps to have a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, and an enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence.

The 131 poems collected in this first-of-its-kind anthology are so glaringly awful that they embody a kind of genius. From Fred Emerson Brooks' "The Stuttering Lover" to Matthew Green's "The Spleen" to Georgia Bailey Parrington's misguided "An Elegy to a Dissected Puppy", they mangle meter, run rampant over rhyme, and bludgeon us into insensibility with their grandiosity, anticlimax, and malapropism.

Guaranteed to move even the most stoic reader to tears (of laughter), Very Bad Poetry is sure to become a favorite of the poetically inclined (and disinclined)....

Oh, the stupidity! The #1 bestselling black-and-white Page-A-Day calendar is back with more hilarious celebrity gaffes, bureaucratic idiocy, malapropisms, and d'oh! moments. Outrageous excuses for not serving in Vietnam: "So many minority youths had volunteered...that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself" (former congressman Tom DeLay). Plus strange headlines, badly thought-out business names (Titanic Tours & Travel), and entertainers who just don't get it: "I want an autobiography without revealing any personal information whatsoever" (Diana Ross to her editor).
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