Monthly Archives: August 2011

A New Gilded Age? We Need Frank Norris

By Robin Bates | Published: August 22, 2011

Frank Norris’s naturalist 1901 novel “The Octopus: A Story of California” provides us a powerful lens through which to view the growing income discrepancy and the rollback of workers’ rights and benefits that we are seeing in the United States today.

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The Hunger Inside You, Hold It

By Robin Bates | Published: August 21, 2011

American Muslim poet Kazim Ali explores the spiritual dimensions of fasting in his poetry collection “Fasting for Ramadan.”

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The Poetics of Base Stealing

By Robin Bates | Published: August 20, 2011

Robert Francis’s poem “The Base Stealer” helps us appreciate the exquisite tensions between the base runner and the pitcher.

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The Transcendent Properties of Food

By Robin Bates | Published: August 19, 2011

“Babette’s Feast” is about a sumptuous banquet that descends upon a querulous community like an act of grace, thereby allowing the spirit to flow again. In other words, it’s a good film to watch these days when our own communities are troubled and having difficulty coming together.

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Warren Buffett, Dickensian Philanthropist

By Robin Bates | Published: August 18, 2011

Warren Buffett’s op-ed article that the wealthy should pay more taxes is reminding me of Charles Dickens’ benevolent philanthropists, especially Mr. Brownlow in “Oliver Twist.”

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Laureate Philip Levine, Working Class Poet

By Robin Bates | Published: August 17, 2011

Raised in Michigan and once a factory worker, Philip Levine, our new poet laureate, often writes about rustbelt desolation, as he does in “An Abandoned Factory, Detroit.”

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A Fantasy about the Vatican and Condoms

By Robin Bates | Published: August 16, 2011

The Pope’s endorsement of condoms to stop the spread of disease last November prompted the following light poem by Scott Bates.

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Grendel Unleashed in Congress

By Robin Bates | Published: August 15, 2011

Republican brinksmanship in the halls of Congress these past few weeks has been reminding me of Grendel rampaging through Heorot Hall in “Beowulf.”

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A Poem for Meek Lovers of the Good

By Robin Bates | Published: August 14, 2011

Reading a poem like Emerson “Brahma”’ is a good occasion to remind ourselves that the oppositions in life that tie us into knots are not all that there is to existence.

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