About Uncle Sol | Uncle Sol

About

Carlton Smith is a Project Manager and erstwhile Web Application Developer residing in Southeast Michigan. He is the founder and executive editor of the literary web magazine Troubadour 21 as well as a Detroit area poet. His poetry can be found at Uncle Sol Poetry. Aside from these endeavors, Carlton can also be seen blogging about the current economic situation at Return of the Great Depression.

All of the blame for this site rests squarely on his shoulders.

This site is simply a place for me to write about whatever I happen to find interesting at any given time. Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think, good or bad, agree or disagree. I hope that eventually this can become a place for intelligent discourse about the things that affect all of us. If you would like to contact me directly, feel free to use the email link on the side bar, or simply leave a comment in one of the articles. I hope you enjoy the site!

The title, Uncle Sol, Starting a Thought Farm, comes from a poem by E.E. Cummings, included below. I'd explain why I used it for my title, but that would be too easy. For now, I will let the poem suffice...

nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added

my Uncle Sol's farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who'd given my Unde Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and

i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol's coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol

and started a worm farm)