Contact us: steve@icecubepress.com |

The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram

Paul Ingram, the legendary bookseller at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa, found what he feared was long lost—his collection of humorous, intelligent, rollicking, and witty clerihews. This clerihew collection will be a big hit with readers (adult) of all sorts: fans of poetry, of humor, the literary arts, political cartoons, as well as readers of history and current affairs. These clerihews and the illustrations are positively a match made in heaven. This book includes an insightful foreword by Elizabeth McCracken well known author of several New York Times notable books. Paul’s clerihew book was an ABA Indie Next List pick, endorsed by Roz Chast as well as featured in the New York Daily News, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press Citizen, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Little Village, Printer’s Row of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Review of Books, the Iowa Source, the Minnesota Post, and more. A beautiful illuminated manuscript art show by the book’s illustrator, Julia Anderson Miller, is being scheduled for several art gallerys in the coming year. Join our email list to get updates.

Fantastic write up on Paul in the Los Angeles Review of Books

New York City Daily News features the Lost Clerihews!

Four Line Poems That Pack A Punch, Press Citizen

Iowa Literary Tastemaker, from the Des Moines Register

Listen to Paul on Talk of Iowa, on IPR  — and/or — WVIK Art Talks, Quad Cities

With Clerihews, Ingram finds back door to cool in the Iowa City Press Citizen

Fantastic article in Shelf Awareness on this book (click here to read)

Nice review in Poetry & Popular Culture by Lewis Turco

“Paul Ingram’s delightful collection of clerihews is so much fun that after you read it, you will need to put aside whatever important work you are doing and write several of your own.” — Roz Chast, author & illustrator

“To complete the perfect dinner party you need only to whip out your copy of The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram. Everyone will then be joyful.” — Jane Hamilton, author, The Book of Ruth

“The quick and the dead, the famous and the infamous, the saintly and the sinful, all are grist for this superlatively witty writer’s mill. The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram, beautifully illustrated by Julia Anderson-Miller, will rescue even the dullest dinner party.” — Margot Livesey

“I’m so glad they’ve been found! And published. The Lost Clerihews show this marvelous, necessary bookman in all his erudition and mischief, and have induced a good deal of laughing out loud with this admirer of wit and conceit.” — Daniel Menaker, author, My Mistake and former editor-in-chief of Random House

“Reader, you are in for an absolute treat. The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram are nothing but a delight, a festival of old-timey giggles made new. My only disappointment is that I didn’t make the cut this time. I hope to do something worthy of an Ingram clerihew before the next volume.” — Elizabeth Crane, author, We Only Know So Much

“Paul Ingram’s
cerebrum’s
made portable criticisms
into pocket-sized witticisms”
D A Powell, poet, Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys

“Whew! So many Clerihews from the brain and heart of the redoubtable Paul Ingram. We always knew that Paul is one of the most astute readers in America, but this Lost Work of his shows what a wonderful poet he also is. A difficult form in a free-verse world, the Clerihew’s many boundaries make Paul’s wit and wisdom all that richer as it gets squeezed out between these outrageous rhymes. This book is wonderful—and far more serious than it might appear at first.” — R. M. Ryan, author of Goldilocks in Later Life, The Golden Rules, Vaudeville in the Dark, and the forthcoming There’s a Man With a Gun Over There.

“Paul Ingram is an extraordinary bookseller who has not only found the lost clerihews; he has elevated the entire form. This book forever shall reside in our guest bedroom so that visitors will either know or wonder what sort of people we are.” — Richard Howorth, Square Books, Oxford, Mississippi

“Paul Ingram is mad, bad, and dangerous to know, especially if you’re a writer. This is a wicked collection. Read it at your peril.” — Christopher Merrill, author, Necessities

“This is an essential addition to your clerihew library. Move over, E. C. Bentley!” — Amelia Gray, author, Threats

“Here’s treat for which we can barely wait, forthcoming from Ice Cube Press, come July 15, 2014, The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram. That would be beloved Iowa City bookseller of Prairie Lights fame, Paul Ingram.” — University Bookstore, Seattle, WA.

“A biographical (and very silly) four line poem is a clerihew. Thank goodness Paul Ingram found his lost clerihews because they are a book lovers delight! Hopefully this is just volume one!” — Anne Holman, The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, UT

“Paul Ingram’s lost clerihews are devilishly clever; Julia Anderson-Miller’s illustrations are a wicked delight. The sum is much greater than its parts. Like BBQ and beer, a perfect pairing.” — Linda Bubon, Women & Children First Chicago, Illinois

“The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram is a readers delight. Paul Ingram has for decades been one of the keenest readers & booksellers in the United States. If a reader cannot wander in to Prairie Lights to partake of Paul’s wit & wisdom a reader can pick up a copy of The Lost Clerihews of Paul Ingram and get a sense of Paul’s exquisite erudition.” — Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Booksellers

“a worthy descendent of the work of the English journalist who invented the form … I recommend happily.” — Lewis Turco, author, The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics

Paul Ingram has been a bookseller ever since he has been old enough to have a grownup job. Since 1989 he has worked at Prairie Lights Bookstore, doing what he can to influence the literary taste of the Iowa City community through radio, video, book clubs, book festivals, reviews, and of course, person-to-person. This has been no small job in a town where even the baristas carry PhD’s in English. In his free time he reads and listens to highbrow classical music. He is married to a wonderful wife and deeply in love with his three grandchildren. He began creating rhymes before he could crawl.

Julia Anderson-Miller studied drawing, painting, and art history at Moorhead State University, the University of Minnesota, and Summer School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has had solo shows of her paintings in Chicago and New York. She has also performed as a stand-up comic in the review, What’s so Funny about being Female at Dudley Riggs, ETC. in Minneapolis. She has designed book jackets and illustrated several books, including Mr. Raccoon and His Friends, by Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Peculiar People, The Story Of My Life by Augustus Hare. Julia lives with her writer husband Bruce Joshua Miller and their doggy Karlos. She currently works as a Director of Design Services in Chicago. Learn more on her website