Monthly Archives: June 2010

Dr. Dolittle vs. the Oil Spill: A Fantasy

By Robin Bates | Published: June 3, 2010

The news is so unremittingly grim from the Gulf oil disaster—I think that BP is up to Plan F in its attempts to plug the gushing oil– that I’m going to share a poetic fantasy about ending it.  Maybe it will help keep you from hardening over and becoming fatalistic.  The poem was written by my […]

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Mending Walls Can Save Lives

By Robin Bates | Published: June 2, 2010

Robert Frost’s poems (as indicated by “Mending Wall,” which I wrote on yesterday) have the wonderful ability to move from the very specific to the universal.  One begins with a small incident (two neighbors fixing a stone wall) and, before one knows it, one is thinking deeply about the world–barriers between people, roads not taken, […]

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Fences, Good Neighbors, and Immigration

By Robin Bates | Published: June 1, 2010

Will America’s most famous poem about fences give us any insight into the border problems we are currently experiencing with Mexico? Let’s take a look at it and find out. The poem I have in mind is, of course, Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.” Here it is:

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