100 Years. Still Flippant.
Poet. Artist. Lifelong original. Join us in celebrating Phyllis Tippett’s 100th birthday, and discover the words, wit, and creativity she shares with the world.
A life fully lived
Born in Dearborn, Michigan in 1926, Phyllis M. Tippett has spent a century paying close attention — to people, to light, to the small absurdities that make life worth writing about. Poet, visual artist, yoga practitioner, xylophone player, and proud driver of a convertible VW.
Blandeloquence
I'm planning for my one-hundredth birthday
to pen the greatest quatrain of the day
it begins, now, it's journey in my head
it's sure to be bright as a summer sun's ray
twill grace pages of Atlantic Monthly
and be quotable in circles of fame
a treatise all will wish to champion
the correctness of which all will acclaim
I will read it for one and all to hear
before TV, in front of the White House
I will have a wide captive audience
and critics, it's worthiness, will espouse
this a logical step to celebrate
naming as poet laureate to be
an high honor for my quatrainry
and for many a poet to envy
mayhaps I'm a bit enthusiastic
could be olders where I live won't quote
just smile and tolerate my tomfoolery
to them my greatest may be just a ho, hum note
— Phyllis M. Tippett
They Ought'a Be Banned
someone suggested a 'five times' mirror
so to see to the needs of my skin
all I saw were more wrinkles
to make such a mirror is a sin
— Phyllis M. Tippett, My Perceived Dotage
My Perceived Dotage
A debut collection at 100 — sharp, funny, and full of hard-won grace. Nearly three thousand pocket poems distilled into one essential volume.
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