Because of my concerns over my friend Alan and his cancer, I will spend another week looking at the role that poetry can play as we confront death and dying. Today’s entry describes how poetry made its way into my life following the death of my son Justin, described in last week’s opening entry […]
Monthly Archives: May 2009
Poetry in the Face of Death
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged death of a child, Fall of Icarus, Lost Children, Mary Oliver, Musee des Beaux Arts, Pieter Breugel, W. H. Auden Comments closed
Gawain’s Castle of Life and Death
In the weeks following my son Justin’s death, after the funeral and the memorial service and the departure of friends and relatives, I retreated into my study (it was summer vacation). I had to do something so I returned to a book I had begun writing on “how classic British literature can change your life.” […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged death of a child, Justin, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Comments closed
A Camelot Knight with One Year to Live
Before talking about how Sir Gawain and the Green Knight came to my aid following Justin’s death, let me go through it (for those of you haven’t read it or haven’t read it recently), focusing especially on the way it handles the topic of death. The poem is in the top five of my “favorite […]
Empowering Conversations about Race
As I look back over this past week of entries, what conclusions can I draw? First, that literature can serve the cause of race relations in this country. The friendship between Huck and Jim spurred my dreams of black-white friendship when I was a child being raised in segregated schools in the south, and it […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged black anger, censorship, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, race relations, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, white fantasies Comments closed
When I Defended Song of Solomon
I think it was 13 years ago or so when I read in our county newspaper that a high school student was objecting to a book he had been assigned to read in an Advanced Placement English class. The book was Toni’s Morrison’s Pulitzer-winning Song of Solomon, a book on the Advanced Placement list, and […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged censorship, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, power of literature, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison Comments closed
Should Huck Finn Be Banned?
How much impact can images from a book like Huckleberry Finn have upon a reader? I’ve written about the importance of Huck’s courageous stand upon me as a young child, so I would answer, “ a tremendous impact.” But could there also be a negative impact? Could the docile and comic Jim undermine the self […]
