Monthly Archives: March 2018

Act in All Things as Love Will Prompt

By Robin Bates | Published: March 11, 2018

My lectures on Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, Shakespeare and Sophocles all seem to track back to Lent these days.

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Atwood: Flawed Activist, Genius Author

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2018

Margaret Atwood is not the best spokesperson for feminism because activists and authors necessarily have different agendas.

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“Sonny’s Blues,” Transcendent Moments

By Robin Bates | Published: March 8, 2018

In “Sonny’s Blues, art wars with the world’s darkness and promises momentary relief.

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My Dinner with Mladen

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2018

An account of a dinner with an old Slovenian friend and intellectual.

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Tearful at Prospero’s Farewell

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2018

Prospero’s final speech unexpectedly moved me to tears as I read it aloud recently to my British Fantasy class.

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Trouble Recovering My French

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2018

Lines from Lucille Clifton’s “i am accused of tending to the past,” wrenched out of context, describe by experience with French at the moment

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Sorrow, Tears, Emptiness Are Necessary

By Robin Bates | Published: March 4, 2018

Rob finds redemption in suffering and sorrow in “But for Love,” a good Lenten message.

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Time Flows On, Paris Remains

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2018

I land in Paris today and will negotiate between nostalgia and the city as it presently is. Apollinaire has a wonderful Paris poem about time moving on.

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Facebook Didn’t Know Its Own Strength

By Robin Bates | Published: March 1, 2018

A Facebook employee compared Mark Zuckerberg to Lennie in “Of Mice and Men,” a man who didn’t know his own strength in the 2016 election.

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