“To be read out loud and with a great deal of delight” – Studs Terkel
Re: At This Point in Rhyme, Chicago radio interview with Yip, 1977
“There’s a reservoir of ideas and giftedness here, and of humor, and humanity. . . Marvelous out-loud reading.” – Studs Terkel
Another Chicago radio interview with Yip, June 1978
“One of my favorite books of verses in the world . . . there are so many things in this book [Rhymes for the Irreverent] that I cherish. . .” – David Frost
show with guest Yip Harburg
“The deftness of this kind of light verse is so disarming. It seems easy to write, but I know it isn’t.” – Dick Cavett
With guest Yip Harburg, 1978
“Harburg has never rhymed ‘June’ with ‘moon’ in his life. I have known him to work for days to avoid an obvious rhyme, an obvious word sequence, or an obvious idea. The result is, from time to time, a blaze of fireworks and Catherine wheels in which words, with their sounds and their meanings, are shot back and forth or whirled around in dazzling discipline.” – Barrows Dunham, eminent philosopher and author
(Original blurb, At This Point in Rhyme)
“His rhymes see contemporary life as endlessly menacing, but ultimately hopeful. They will exhilarate you and they may exasperate you, but they will never stupefy you.” – Fred Saidy, librettist of Finian’s Rainbow (Original blurb, At This Point in Rhyme)
“Mr. Harburg’s works have the smooth flow that all good writers recognize as the result of hard work and much searching for just the right word. His off-beat rhymes are reminiscent of Lewis Carroll and George Canning. There is no trace of triteness in him and the fun he has in writing rubs off on his lucky readers.
“His subjects run from Jesus to Satan, from a protoplasmic blob to genius. Life and its living is smeared with a broad and ironic humor that creates deep thought while you are laughing. His every phrase leads a fellow writer to exclaim, “Why couldn’t I have said that?” – Stanley A. Orr, The Churchman, Feb. 1977
Newly reconfigured Rhymes for the Irreverent, 240 pages, (FFRF, 2006), $20.00, lavishly illustrated by Seymour Chwast, combines two out of print works, plus new poems.
