Great Moments in Literature
# 11

Hilbert Trogue’s
‘Pants Poem’
a knockout!

First poetry reading in the ‘Modern Style’

Peoria, Illinois, 4 July 1932: In a ground-breaking poetry reading in the ‘Modern Style’, playboy poet and pants man Hilbert Trogue reads his ‘Ode to My Trousers’ at the Coconut Grove in downtown Peoria, sans tie, sans jacket, starting a new fad for presenting verse in a casual and exciting way. His tailor had suggested a high waist, and a bevy of fans show that they appreciate what’s on offer. The cry ‘Slip ’em off, Hilbert!’ was heard around Peoria for weeks afterwards, and the chant ‘The Man, the Pants, the Poem!’ becomes all the rage in the mid-west!

Jacket’s Great Moments in Literature —

Jacket # 3 — On 29 April 1943, researchers at the Cavendish Laboratory successfully test the technique of metamorphic diathermal annealing.

Jacket # 4 — Self-styled ‘Engineer Poet’ Dieter Baumbeiter reduces Heinrich von Kleist's twelve-volume Ode to Angst to the size of a haiku.

Jacket # 8 — Sappho Sees the Light — The young poetess Sappho of Lesbos, exasperated by her boy friend Tod's crude subaqueous advances, decides to look elsewhere for inspiration for her erotic verse.

Jacket # 9 — Hiram Bamburger's 1951 ‘Poetry Machine’ — photo of inventor Hiram Bamburger at the keyboard of his ‘Linopentametron’.

Jacket # 10 — Belgrade researchers pinpoint location of ‘Poetry Gland’ in brain.

Jacket # 11 — Hilbert Trogue's ‘Pants Poem’ a knockout in Peoria! First poetry reading in the casual ‘Modern Style’!