Monthly Archives: August 2014

Munro’s Strategies for Emotional Survivial

Alice Munro’s wondrous fiction looks at how we both cling to and feel suffocated by monotony.

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Mass Extinctions Followed by Life

Richard Shelton’s poem “Death” reminds us that we are part of the world that we are destroying.

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Fighting Back against the Program

In this Scott Bates parable, one can get pushed around only so much before turning to rebellion.

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Flannery O’Connor’s Dislike of Ayn Rand

Flannery O’Connor couldn’t stand Ayn Rand. With good reason.

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What Frightens the Ferguson Police

A James Baldwin short story helps explain some of the fears that led to police overreaction in Ferguson, Missouri.

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Angel Infancy

Henry Vaughan’s “The Retreat” believes that children have a special connection with eternity.

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An O’Neillian NASCAR Tragedy

NASCAR driver Tony Stewart killing fellow driver Kevin Ward is like something out of a Eugene O’Neill play.

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René Magritte and Edgar Allan Poe

Knowing that surrealist painter René Magritte loved Edgar Allan Poe explains a lot about his work.

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Robin Williams Made Poetry Cool

Robin Williams gave us one of cinema’s greatest depictions of a literature teacher.

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