Political satire is a wonderful medium for humor, but it does have a serious side. The reality is that satire is based on true life events and while these certainly lend themselves to ridicule, the absurdities generate an underlying perception that something is wrong with...

The Last Poet on Wall Street by Michael Goodwin follows James Alexander, an exceptionally gifted young poet from rural Tennessee who abandons a Yale fellowship to chase riches in New York in the 1980s. Lark Campbell, someone James knew in college, recruits him, and James...