Monthly Archives: July 2018

The Dreamlike Pleasures of Rowing

By Robin Bates | Published: July 31, 2018

In “Alice through the Looking Glass,” boating is a metaphor for life slipping by–unnoticed by Alice but seen as deeply tragic by Carroll.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Aging, Alice through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll, lost innocence, rowing | Comments closed

Climate Change Witchery

By Robin Bates | Published: July 30, 2018

Leslie Marmon Silko’s nightmare vision of environmental destruction is being hastened by the Trump administration.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ceremony, climate change, Donald Trump, global warming, Leslie Marmon Silko | Comments closed

Hot Sun, Cool Fire

By Robin Bates | Published: July 29, 2018

Renaissance writer George Peele was fascinated by Bathsheba, depicting an erotic mixture of hot passion and cool restraint.

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Apples That Taste of Earth and Song

By Robin Bates | Published: July 27, 2018

Apples bring out poetic creativity, all the more so because the West has seen them as the forbidden fruit. I share here a selection of tempting apple poems.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "August", "eve's version", "Song of the Wander Aengus", apples, Charles Algernon Swinburne, Christina Rossetti, fruit, Goblin Market, Grace Schulman, Grimm Brothers, John Milton, Lucille Clifton, Paradise Lost, Snow White, temptation, the fall, William Butler Yeats | Comments closed

Robert Mueller as Peter Wimsey

By Robin Bates | Published: July 26, 2018

Much of the country is hoping that the Mueller investigation plays out like a Dorothy Sayers novel, with truth and justice prevailing in the end.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Collusions, detective fiction, Donald Trump, Dorothy Sayers, Five Red Herrings, soft-boiled detectives, Trump investigation | Comments closed

Coping with Aging through Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: July 25, 2018

Wordsworth has written some of the world’s great poems for coping with aging.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Prelude", Aging, death and dying, Intimations of Immortality, Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth | Comments closed

Trump’s Enablers Operate as Pilot Fish

By Robin Bates | Published: July 24, 2018

Herman Melville’s “Maldive Shark” captures how policy works in the White House. Trump is the shark, his enablers the pilot fish.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Maldive Shark", Donald Trump, Herman Melville, Jared Kushner, Trump cabinet members, Trump siblings | Comments closed

Hummingbirds and the Life Force

By Robin Bates | Published: July 23, 2018

Monday Happiness is watching hummingbirds feed. The two that visit our feeders—which is to say, the one that feeds and the one that gets chased away—are resplendent in their shimmering colors, reminding me of the hummingbird in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony. As the Laguna Pueblo author sees it, hummingbirds have a direct connection to the […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Ceremony, hummingbirds, Leslie Marmon Silko | Comments closed

Tolstoy: For Happiness, Love & Sacrifice

By Robin Bates | Published: July 22, 2018

In “The Cossacks,” a dissipated young man finds spiritual meaning when he journeys to the Caucasus.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cossacks, Leo Tolstoy, Nature | Comments closed