This playful Scott Bates environmental poem looks at the nativity story and observes that we are in desperate need of a repetition.
Monthly Archives: December 2019
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Nativity
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Christmas, climate change, Environmental destruction, Scott Bates, syncretism Comments closed
GOP Epitaph: “He Loved Big Brother”
Why has the GOP become Trump’s party? Because they have learned to love Big Brother.
Will UK One Day “Rue” Brexit?
With Brexit, Britain ignores Donne’s contention that “no man is an island.” Irish poet Ian Duhig has a smart poem about the coming withdrawal.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged “Rue”, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Ian Duhig, John Donne, Meditation 17 Comments closed
In the Face of Trump, Be Aeneas Strong
Virgil’s “Aeneid” gives us images of a strong man standing up to enflamed passions. We need people to step up in the current impeachment debates.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Aeneid, Donald Trump, GOP, impeachment hearings, Trump Ukraine Scandal, Virgil Comments closed
Trump Love: I Lie with Him and He with Me
Shakespeare Sonnets 138 and 147 describe Trump Love only too well.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Donald Trump, GOP, Sonnet 138, Sonnet 147, Trump supporters, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Let the Evening Come
Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come” takes the terror out of darkness by reminding that “God does not leave us comfortless.”
Lit and Life: My Intellectual Trajectory
I’ve long held that great literature impacts history harder than lesser literature. I trace the evolution of my ideas in today’s post.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Charles Dickens, Denis Diderot, Discourse on Inequality, Feminism, Hans Robert Jauss, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Letter on the Blind, Martin Chuzzlewit, Marxism, post-colonialism, queer theory, reception theory Comments closed
13 Books That (Kind of) Changed America
I review Parini’s “13 Books That Changed America” and find his view of change to be limiting. For one thing, he excludes most of American literature.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged !3 Books That Changed America, Betty Friedan, Defence of Poetry, Feminine Mystique, Jay Parini, Percy Shelley Comments closed
