Monthly Archives: May 2013

Oklahoma Tornado Recalls Dorothy’s

By Robin Bates | Published: May 22, 2013

The Oklahoma tornado recalls literature’s most famous tornado in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

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Returning Home to Aging Parents

By Robin Bates | Published: May 21, 2013

Marilynne’s Robinson’s novel “Home” captures some of my own experience returning home.

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Poems Teach Us to Be Wise

By Robin Bates | Published: May 20, 2013

Two young student athletes in my Intro to Literature took important lessons from “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and a Wendell Berry poem.

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Look into Thine Heart and Write

By Robin Bates | Published: May 19, 2013

Longfellow reenacts the Pentecost in this reflection up his changing relationship to nature.

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Nostalgic for Fluid Basketball

By Robin Bates | Published: May 18, 2013

With a lackluster NBA playoffs, I find myself thrown back on my memories. A Fairchild poem understands how I feel.

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Comeuppance Fantasy about the Rich

By Robin Bates | Published: May 17, 2013

Depressed by the stock market soaring while the economy limps along? Here’s a Great Depression revenge fantasy.

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To Know Gatsby Is to Know America

By Robin Bates | Published: May 16, 2013

“The Great Gatsby” is about fantasizing. Baz Luhrmann’s new film appears to understand this well.

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Antigone Would Bury Boston Bomber

By Robin Bates | Published: May 15, 2013

Sophocles and Homer present compelling cases for granting full funeral rights to the Boston Marathon bomber.

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Listen Carefully–The Books Are Whispering

By Robin Bates | Published: May 14, 2013

I gave a talk last night to Leonardtown, Maryland’s Friends of the Library about—surprise!–“How Literature Can Change Your Life.” It was a busy day, what with writing the talk and turning in final grades and going to one last committee meeting and attending a retirement party (for which I wrote a bit of doggerel) and […]

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