“But maybe stories and poetry can help open our minds to possibilities that are very real but extremely hard to see; and in that sense, they can be very practical.” – Rachel Kranz in a response to yesterday’s post I love the two responses to yesterday’s post (from the two major women in my life) […]
Monthly Archives: June 2009
Poetry Standing Firm in the Face of Fire
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, Azar Nafisi, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herbert Marcuse, Martin Luther King, politics, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Simin Belbahani, Ulysses, Uncle Tom's Cabin Comments closed
Poetry on the Streets of Tehran
As protest roils Tehran’s streets, even in the face of a brutal crackdown, poetry is making itself heard. This past Saturday National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition interviewed poet Simin Behbahani, known as the “lioness of Iran,” who read a poem she had composed about the tyrannny of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The NPR website also […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Iranian protests, political poetry, Simin Behbahani, Tom Lehrer Comments closed
John Donne’s Seductive Flea
Georges de La Tour, Woman Catching a Flea, c. 1638. Oil on canvas. In case you haven’t heard, the news media was buzzing last week over a CBS interview with President Obama where he nailed a fly that was bothering him. I thought I’d have fun in today’s entry and talk about the symbolic use […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged A Fly Buzzed When I Died, courtship, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, love poetry, sex, The Flea Comments closed
Striving to Emulate Little Lord Fauntleroy
Children, when they start developing a sense of self, discover that there is a preset gender program they are expected to conform to. For some this is not a problem, but others feel constrained by their assigned designation. It’s not always that girls want to be boys and boys girls. Sometimes they just want to […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Francis Hodgson Burnett, gender, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Twelfth Night Comments closed
Dreaming about Ozma of Oz
After reading my post on how we can examine our favorite children’s classics to gain self insight, my colleague Barbara Beliveau in the St. Mary’s economics department mentioned how much she enjoyed L. Frank Baum’s second Oz book, entitled The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), when she was growing up. This was always my favorite […]
Biology and Poetry Love Gender Diversity
After a week of discussing how literature can help us handle anger and violence, I return to Twelfth Night and the slippery issue of gender identity. This too is grabbing national headlines these days (what a time we find ourselves in!) as Americans battle over same sex marriage, “don’t ask don’t tell,” and other concerns […]
Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalyptic Vision
When we say that our safety trumps all other considerations, we lose touch with something that is far more meaningful. Sometimes we need a novel as grim and stark as Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” to be clear what is at stake.
Poetry Battling Despair
Odin’s Valhalla, Dwelling Place of the Einherrar, artist unknown While the major focus of this blog and website is looking to literature to see if it can provide solutions to life’s problems, at times I wonder if I am just engaging in wishful thinking. What if there are no solutions and literature is just whistling […]
