Felicia Lamport

Felicia Lamport (1916 – 23 December 1999), was an American poet and satirist who also wrote a column for The Boston Globe called "Muse of the Week in Review". She was known for her inventive use of the pun.

Life and work Lamport was born in Manhattan in New York City in 1916, daughter of Samuel C. Lamport and Miriam (née Dworsky). She graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie in 1937, after which she began her career as a reporter for the New York Journal and spent several years as a subtitle writer for MGM films. Lamport was a noted host and raconteur and Gleason later recalled one day meeting Alger Hiss over Sunday lunch at the house. In 1961 Time magazine enthusiastically reviewed her book Scap Irony: "The pun also rises. Too much maligned as the lowest form of humor, it can soar for a brief moment. And in good hands, words can be made to jump, molt, wiggle, shrink, flash, collide, fight, strut, and turn themselves inside out or upside down." Her literary style has been compared to that of Ogden Nash. Lamport's obituary in The New York Times mentioned William Safire's description of her as "'the leading muse of the Deprefixers,' which he defined as poets who achieve effects by dropping prefixes, for lines like 'Men often pursue in suitable style/ The imical girl with the scrutable smile.'"

Lamport was well known in Cambridge and beyond for her wit. She was also loved by students in her writing classes at Harvard University and at the Harvard Extension School. In 2001 a set of her papers, including play scripts, articles, verse and other writings, correspondence and teaching materials, was donated to the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. She was a keen chess player and served as a director of the American Chess Foundation.

She and Kaplan entertained guests at both their Bond Street home and on Martha's Vineyard where they summered for many years. Her friend Robert Manning, former editor of the Atlantic Monthly, said Lamport "suffered fools politely, but not gladly. Having Felicia as a friend protected you from enemies on all sides. She was so loyal, in addition to being so entertaining and ingenious."

Lamport died on 23 December 1999, of pneumonia, at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 83. She was survived by her husband, two children and four grandchildren.

Selected works Mink on Weekdays (Ermine on Sunday), (1951) Victor Gollancz Ltd Scrap Irony (A Tribute to Vassar College on the Occasion of Its Centennial) (1961), Houghton Mifflin, (illustrated by Edward Gorey) Cultural Slag (1966), Victor Gollancz Ltd, (illustrated by Edward Gorey) Light Metres (1982), Everest House, (illustrated by Edward Gorey) Political Plumlines (1984), Doubleday, (illustrated by Bill Sanders)