As America undergoes a major opioid epidemic, it is worth looking back at two Lucille Clifton poems about how drugs were blighting the lives of young black men and women in the early 1990s.
Monthly Archives: August 2016
Our Stoned Girls and Boys
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "memo", "white lady", addiction, cocaine, heroin, Lucille Clifton, opioid epidemic Comments closed
Kranz & Muriel Spark on Insulting the Aged
Today I share a poker post from my 61-year-old novelist and poker playing friend Rachel Kranz, about the indignities of being called “young lady” while at the poker table. Muriel Spark similarly objects to the indignities heaped upon those who are aging in her novel “Memento Mori.”
Selling Your Child on Idealism
Should parents, knowing what the world is like, encourage their children’s idealism. Maggie Smith takes on this question in an entertaining poem.
Jon Stewart Resembled Jonathan Swift
Jon Stewart stepped down from “The Daily Show” just over a year ago. At the time, he was our Jonathan Swift and, like Swift, he was not afraid to satirize satire itself when it became too puffed up.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Daily Show, Jon Stewart, Jonathan Swift, Laura Ingraham, political satire, satire Comments closed
Trump as Melville’s Confidence Man
Why, in the words of Nicholas Kristof, do we think of Hillary as “a slippery, compulsive liar” and Donald Trump as “a gutsy truth-teller.” Herman Melville gives us a compelling explanation in “The Confidence Man.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged 2016 presidential election, Confidence Man, Donald Trump, Herman Melville, Hillary Clinton Comments closed
On Walls: A Letter to the Incoming Class
Talk about walls and keep people out of America is beginning to seep down to high schools and colleges. It is therefore important that students understand how walls operate. Daniel Defoe and Lucille Clifton has some useful insights into how walls both make us safe and entrap us.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "note to self", "wishes for sons", Daniel Defoe, Donald Trump, Lucille Clifton, walls Comments closed
Wander Slowly through the Forest
In this nature poem Mary Oliver tells us to open ourselves to “God or the gods,” to listen for “the words that will never leave God’s mouth,” to linger in the wind and the rain and to wander slowly through forests,
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Leaves and Blossoms along the Way", forests, Mary Oliver, Nature, Spirituality Comments closed
U.S. Police, Tear Down These Walls
the Justice Department has just reprimanded the Baltimore for the metaphoric walls it has set up between its police department and its African American citizens. Gloria Naylor in “The Women of Brewster Place” writes about a literal wall, as well as dreams of tearing it down.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Baltimore police department, Freddy Gray, Naylor (Gloria), Women of Brewster Place Comments closed
