What will it take to bring peace between police and black communities? Homer has a vision of such a truce at the end of “The Odyssey” but it may not be realistic.
Monthly Archives: July 2016
Homer’s Warning about Revenge Killings
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "the meeting after the savior gone 4/4/68", Alton Sterling, Beowulf, Black Lives Matter, Ceremony, Dallas police killings, Grendel's mother, Homer, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lucille Clifton, Odyssey, Philando Castille, race war Comments closed
The Simple Creed: Man’s Duty to Man
This poem about the Good Samaritan by Australian working class author Henry Lawson depicts the Samaritan as a figure from the outback.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Bible, Good Samaritan, Henry Lawson, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge Comments closed
Marriage & Tennis, One and the Same
Maxine Kumin’s poem “Prothalamion” is at once a celebration of marriage and tennis. I share it today to honor Roger Federer, who continues to dazzle long past the expiration date for tennis players.
Trollope’s Melmotte Anticipates Trump
Anthony Trollope foreshadowed Donald Trump in the figure of Augustus Melmotte in “The Way We Live Now” (1875).
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Anthony Trollope, Donald Trump, politics, Way We Live Now Comments closed
Be Skeptical of Shakespeare’s Skeptics
Recent evidence further confirms what most Shakespeare scholars believe: that Shakespeare wrote the plays ascribed to him. The Bard’s social anxieties, however, may have communicated themselves to the skeptics, who play out their own anxieties as they attempt to tear him down.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Charlie Chaplin, Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Mark Twain, Shakespeare authorship debate, Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Shakespeare Was Malvolio
Recent research shows how much of a social climber Shakespeare was. The knowledge gives us new insight into characters like Malvolio and Othello.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Christopher Marlowe, Comedy, Doctor Faustus, Jane Austen, social climbing, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
July 4th: Boundless Chrysanthemums
Two poems about fireworks for Fourth of July.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Fireworks", "Fourth of July Night", Babette Deutsch, Dorothy Aldis, July 4 Comments closed
Break Your Fast with Joy
This Rumi poem celebrates the end of Ramadan, which occurs Wednesday. Drawing on stories that are familiar to Jews and Christians, he talks about the light that has broken in.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Mercy Has Heard That O Lord and Has Come", Eid al Fitr, Islam, Ramadan, Rumi Comments closed
