Word: figurehead
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...FIGUREHEAD By John Hollander Knopf $22, 96pp...
...does not move me. His poems are not verses that romance-filled 16-year-olds also reading The Bell Jar will dog-ear and gloss with pink pens. No "how-do-I-love-thees" cling to Hollander's pages like damp, juvenile kisses. Hollander's newest book of poetry, Figurehead, insulted my delicate romantic sensibilities at first with its apparent lack of poeticized emotion and what seemed overly intellectual, self-conscious and anal attention to grandiose metrical dexterity, complete with a hyper-inflated vocabulary that rivals Webster...
...thoroughly brutalized by its rapacious leaders as Nigeria could a shady character like Moshood Abiola be transmuted into a symbol of frustrated democracy. By the time of his mysterious death in the new capital city of Abuja last week, he had been elevated into something he never was, the figurehead of the political freedom Nigeria never had. No matter that for years Abiola was thick as thieves with the military strongmen who were stealing millions from their country; no matter that he pocketed money from sweetheart deals he had cut with the greedy generals. Nigerians were desperate for a hero...
...face to him or threats to national stability. One possible scenario: calling a special session of the parliament in three months' time, when Suharto could announce that he was stepping down and a new President would be appointed. Another option being considered is for Suharto to remain as a figurehead President, while a transitional council of military and civilian officials would be set up to run the country's affairs...
...rioting alone won't topple Suharto. But it's making the military nervous. And the military doesn't like being nervous. "The army is really starting to lean on Suharto to step aside into a figurehead position," says TIME correspondent Terry McCarthy, reporting from Jakarta. "It could happen soon...