Walcott turns to his Caribbean childhood, spent in Santa Lucia and Trinidad, to find God. It is as though his mind must travel there because he is having trouble hearing God in the cities, with their cold streetlamps lining the regulated sidewalks.
Monthly Archives: June 2011
I Must Down to the Seas Again
I can imagine my student sailor liking John Masefield’s “Sea Fever.” She knows what it’s like to give oneself over to “the gull’s way and the whale’s way” and how the wind can feel like a whetted knife.
An Inhumane Immigration System
A Hollywood ending to “The Visitor” would shield the viewer from a tragedy that is re-enacted hundreds of times daily in detention centers around this country. Instead, we are given the stark reality.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Film, illegal immigrants, Immigration, Thomas McCarthy, Visitor Comments closed
Poetry to Read at a Hippy Wedding
Today is my wedding anniversary so you get to hear how I wove poetry into the ceremony. W. B. Yeats, Archibald MacLeish, D.H. Lawrence, and the Song of Solomon all made appearances. Get ready for time travel back to a very different era.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Ars Poetica", "Prayer for My Daughter", "Tortoise Shout", Archibald MacLeish, D. H. Lawrence, Marriage, Song of Solomon, Weddings, William Butler Yeats Comments closed
Family, Secrets, and Food
The focus on secrets in novels like Secrets of the Tsil Cafe and Fried Green Tomatoes led St. Mary’s student Nona Landis to look at the way that “secrets played out in my own family, especially with regard to recipes and dishes.” The following article is about her father’s “Seafood Bisque” and how it is “intimately but mysteriously connected to my family and to me.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Fannie Flagg, Food, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe, Secrets of the Tsil Cafe, Thomas Fox Averill Comments closed
Reading Whitman: My 15 Minutes of Fame
My 15 minutes of fame came when I read Walt Whitman’s “Oh Captain, My Captain” to the people of Slovenia. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. As today is D-Day, it seems a good time to tell the story.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Oh Captain My Captain", Slovenia, V.E. Day, Walt Whitman, World War II Comments closed
This Is the Golden Morning of Love
A wedding poem seems appropriate for June. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s lovely “Marriage Morning” draws me, maybe because it captures some of the anxieties of the wedding day and not just the joys.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Marriage Morning", Alfred Lord Tennyson, love, Marriage, Weddings Comments closed
