From The Argives: Student Poet Combines Humor with Profundity

Handler: “I’m aware of the fact that I’m a semi-pretentious liberal arts student. I don’t think anything I feel is terribly important to anybody else.”

Continuing our recent slew of notable alumni coverage (never change, Das Racist, Joss Whedon ’87, bear-fighting Vermont governor Peter Shumlin ’79), here’s one I recently stumbled upon in the archives. On February 21, 1992, The Argus profiled a student poet, a senior at the time from California. His name was Daniel, and he had made it to the Connecticut Students Poet reading. He even skipped his Chaucer class to save his raspy voice. Today, he is Daniel Handler ’92—or Lemony Snicket, as the case may be.

Handler was recognized statewide as a Connecticut Student Poet and at Wes as a Wesleyan Student Poet for four years running. “It’s not like I particularly want to be famous,” the senior told the Argus in a staggeringly long profile piece that also includes lengthy excerpts from his poetry, “but I do have a fantasy that my books will get passed around and that my friends will tell each other, ‘You’ve got to read this!'” Then, he fantasizes about his books ending up in “some obscure corner like the Cutter Collection on the second floor of SciLi.” Funny how it all works out.

You can read the whole profile piece here and here, or read excerpts from his poetry here (zoom in). According to recent reports, Handler—err, Snicket has a new autobiographical series on its way, debuting this fall.