Lucille, daughters, and granddaughter On Saturday night St. Mary’s College held a memorial service for Lucille Clifton, the noted American poet who was also our teacher, colleague and friend for almost twenty years. For me, the most moving part of the ceremony was hearing Lucille’s remaining three daughters reading their favorite poems. Or rather, they chose […]
Monthly Archives: April 2010
Butterfly Wings, Easter Transformation
Spiritual Sunday In the Episcopal church we are still in the season of Easter, which is coinciding this year with a particularly beautiful spring. I’ve therefore chosen another Easter poem for “Spiritual Sunday.” This is an emblem poem by my favorite religious poet, George Herbert. It is entitled “Easter Wings”: Lord, Who createdst man in […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Easter Wings", Easter, George Herbert, Grace, Religion Comments closed
Will Tiger Woods Weep Bitter Tears?
Sports Saturday “When Roy looked into the boy’s eyes he wanted to say it wasn’t [true] but couldn’t, and he lifted his hands to his face and wept many bitter tears.” (The Natural) In a fine post for the New York Times that I wish I had written, Richard Wright turns to Bernard Malamud’s The […]
Hurt Locker and Confused Young Men
Jeremy Renner Film Friday I taught Kathryn Bigelow’s Hurt Locker in my film genre course earlier this week. The film both impressed and depressed me. I have been teaching action adventure films and how our culture uses this genre to sort through male identity issues. Drawing on a very useful book by Susan Jeffords, Hard […]
Purity Tests Kill the Patient
This is following up on an idea I inferred yesterday, that our delight in white cherry tree blossoms indicates a deep longing for innocence. I suggested that we have more of a problem than do the Japanese (or at least certain Japanese connoisseurs) over the fact that this innocence will fade. Wanting to grab on to innocence […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Abortion, Birthmark, Conservatives, Environmentalism, Extremism, Nathaniel Hawthorne, politics Comments closed
Chaucer’s Answer to Catholic Corruption
Like many, I have been appalled at the non-stop stories of abuse coming out of the Catholic Church and depressed by the Church’s response. The latest egregious example of the latter is the pope’s personal preacher comparing newspaper accusations of the pope to the persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. Calling Geoffrey Chaucer, to […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Canterbury Tales, Catholic Church, Child Abuse, Geoffrey Chaucer, Religion Comments closed
