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KJ McPhee

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OSCAR'S WASTEPAPER BASKET
by KJ McPhee → (All Poetry by KJ McPhee)
Thursday, August 13, 2026    Not rated by the Author.
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Poem Artwork

OSCAR'S WASTEPAPER BASKET


In Oscar Wilde’s study—pale yellow walls,
Red-enamelled wood— but the wastepaper
Basket was the real treasure trove.

Whether made of brass or oak,
Or adorned with classical Greek scenes;
Hermes of Praxiteles, the Athenian grove.

Rough-draft manuscripts, sale catalogues,
Bits of coloured string. And into this Holy
Of Holies, the Wilde boys would tiptoe in.

Foreign stamps, gold-tipped cigarettes;
All children love to rummage gaily
Through their father’s rubbish bin.

Here, we see the genesis of Dorian Gray.
Surely, this is The Selfish Giant story
That he told us in the nursery yesterday. 

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 Reviews of "OSCAR'S WASTEPAPER BASKET"
Reviewed by Andy Turner
Reviewed on August 14, 2026


Indeed, nicely done.

His fairytales tended to over-explain at the end, rather than trust the reader to draw their own conclusions. Yet his prose and poetry are up there with — and at times even beyond the greats.

Ha! His Paris tomb is covered in lipstick.

I have often wondered: if it hadn’t been for the Marquess of Queensberry, what an even greater legacy might he have left? So sad even 127 years later.

Reviewed by Ronald Hull
Reviewed on August 13, 2026
Thank you for bringing a bit of Oscar Wilde who I never read and his family to your poetry today.

Ron


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