Letter (Aug. 24): More on the superrich

More on the superrich

Dear Editor:

In Wednesday’s Aspen Times, Andy Stone quoted a few lines from John Updike’s poem “Slum Lords.” Readers of The Aspen Times will, no doubt, enjoy reading the entire poem, as follows:

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“The superrich make lousy neighbors —

they buy a house and tear it down

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and build another, twice as big, and leave.

They’re never there; they own so many

other houses, each demands a visit.

Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,

bustling with servants and masters, such as

Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,

are districts now like Wall STreet after dark

or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.

The essence of superrich is absence.

They like to demonstrate they can afford

to be elsewhere. Don’t let them in.

Their riches are a form of poverty.”

Jim Breasted

Carbondale