As oil continues to gush unabated into the Gulf of Mexico and as blame (never self blame) gushes from the mouths of company executives in Congressional hearings, we start to see more clearly the results of Dick Cheney’s attacks on oil company regulation. We are at a strange juncture with nature. On the one hand, I […]
Monthly Archives: May 2010
Finding Resolve in the Face of Brokenness
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Beginners", Denise Levertov, Environment, Gulf oil spill, Nature Comments closed
Better Austen than Bronte on the Court
An interesting New York Times column by David Brooks has me doing some more thinking on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s enjoyment of Pride and Prejudice. Here is some of what he wrote: About a decade ago, one began to notice a profusion of Organization Kids at elite college campuses. These were bright students who […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged David Brooks, Elena Kagan, Gail Collins, Jane Austen, politics, Pride and Prejudice, satire, Supreme Court Comments closed
Elena Kagan, Lover of Pride and Prejudice
Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennett Elena Kagan, current nominee for the U. S. Supreme Court, is a “literature lover” who used to reread Pride and Prejudice every year. So we are informed by a fascinating New York Times profile. Does this tell us anything about what kind of justice she will be? I wrote last year […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Elena Kagan, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, politics, Pride and Prejudice, Supreme Court Comments closed
Are Dystopian Novels Useful?
The new Arizona immigration law, which authorizes police to engage in racial profiling (even while claiming not to), has me thinking back to Almanac of the Dead, a 1991 novel by Pueblo writer Leslie Marmon Silko. This imaginary recreation of a 21st-century future predicted this would happen. I don’t like Almanac the way I like Silko’s […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Almanac of the Dead, Ceremony, Dystopias, Illegal immigration, Leslie Marmon Silko, politics Comments closed
Motherhood, an Astounding Ministry
Annunciation, Philippe de Champaigne (1644) Spiritual Sunday Here’s a poem by Denise Levertov for Mother’s Day. I dedicate it to my own mother and to the mother that I’m married to. I also dedicate is to Maurine Holbert-Hogaboom, at whose funeral I read it ten days ago. It was one of her favorites. Levertov imagines […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Annunciation", Denise Levertov, Mary, Mothers, Religion Comments closed
Take Me Out to the Luxury Boxes
Sports Saturday We’ve long had an active poetry series at St. Mary’s, and periodically a wonderful new voice will swim into my consciousness. Bruce Cohen from the University of Connecticut is the latest. Cohen has a wonderfully wandering surrealistic style. Often, as in the poem below, he gives us a narrative that is easy to […]
Fiery Speech in a World of Shadows
Film Friday I owe my love of film to my father, who for years ran the “Cinema Guild” at the University of the South/Sewanee. When I wrote two weeks ago about Meet Me in St. Louis, my father talked about seeing the film as a G. I. in Europe. “We saw the film as directed […]
This Fragile Earth, Our Island Home
On Monday I talked about how Silko says that, if we are to end our destructive (and ultimately self-destructive) assaults upon the earth, we must come into spiritual alignment with it. I’m aware that appealing to Native American religions is sure to draw jeers from certain sectors of the political right, especially the Rush Limbaughs […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Defense of Christianity, Environmentalism, Leslie Marmon Silko, Nature, Religion, T. S. Eliot Comments closed
