Monthly Archives: March 2015

An Inspiring Speech Draws Upon Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2015

Obama drew powerfully from James Baldwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Langston Hughes, and Walt Whitman in his Selma speech.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Nation's Strength", "Song of Myself", Barack Obama, Beauty, Fire Next Times, James Baldwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selma march, Walt Whitman | Comments closed

Literature Fills Your Life with Color

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2015

Having literature always playing in the back of your mind causes the world to pulsate with meaning.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aphra Behn, books on disk, Country Wife, Cyrano de Bergerac. William Wycherley, Edmond Rostand, Gravedigger's Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates, Rover, theater | Comments closed

A Good Faith Is Hard To Find

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2015

Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a profound meditation on doubt and faith.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Catholicism, Doubt, existential despair, Faith, Flannery O'Connor, Good Man Is Hard to Find, Grace, Lent, Sin | Comments closed

Selma’s Bloody History

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2015

Gregory Orr’s poem recalls his arrests in Alabama in 1965.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "On a Highway East of Selma Alabama", Civil Rights Movement, Gregory Orr, Selma, voting rights | Comments closed

Gaga Feminism & 12th Night

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2015

“Gaga feminism” is a playful challenge to conventional social definitions. Shakespeare can be seen as writing “Twelfth Night” in the spirit of gaga feminism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Dadaism, deconstruction, gender identity, Lady Gaga, postmodernism, Surrealism, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Atwood and a Woman on Death Row

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2015

Kelly Gissender, the Georgia woman scheduled to be executed, brings to mind Margaret Atwood’s meditations in “Alias Grace” on what goes on in a woman’s mind.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alias Grace, death penalty, Kelly Gissender, Margaret Atwood, murder | Comments closed

Is It Time to Bring Out Twain’s War Prayer?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 4, 2015

The GOP and Netanyahu are trying to sabotage Obama’s negotiations with Iran. Could Mark Twain’s “War Prayer” knock some sense into them?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, John Boehner, Mark Twain, politics, war, War Prayer | Comments closed

King Looks to Children for Hope

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2015

Despite the horrors he describes, Stephen King’s vision is ultimately a hopeful one. The key, as he sees it, is plugging into childhood hopes and imagination.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Childhood, Intimations of Immortality, It, Stephen King, William Wordsworth | Comments closed

Bigger Thomas, Clarence’s Shadow

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2015

“Native Son,” 75 years old, is Justice Clarence Thomas’ favorite novel. I theorize that Bigger Thomas is the justice’s destructive shadow.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged affirmative action, Clarence Thomas, Everybody's Protest Novel, James Baldwin, Native Son, Richard Wright, Supreme Court, voting rights | Comments closed