Ambition, in Vain

Ambition, in Vain is the first collection in the Chapbooks series.

15 original poems and an essay by Hank Youngman.

The essay is the author's take on the genre and a brief summary of the process by which one might come to value poetry as the intellectual conclusion of the lyrical arts.

The subject matter of the poems is a poeticized account on the disillusion of curtailed ambitions in the emergent culture of the 21st century – a social scene of betrayal, deceit, and a deterministic futility, all fueled by a shallow and senseless motion the dangers of which acceptance are suggested in the indirect language employed to describe them.

Melancholic, at times cynical, and on occasion humorous, Ambition, in Vain is a collection meant to illustrate and explain rather than vent or depress. The thought it provokes is meant to entertain the intellectual reader as well as to draw attention to the reality of the new zeitgeist: at the least, it is not too late to have fun with it; we may yet poeticize, romanticize, and criticize – come what may, as the author points out, "verse can make gold out of dross."