Monthly Archives: December 2019

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Nativity

By Robin Bates | Published: December 21, 2019

This playful Scott Bates environmental poem looks at the nativity story and observes that we are in desperate need of a repetition.

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GOP Epitaph: “He Loved Big Brother”

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2019

Why has the GOP become Trump’s party? Because they have learned to love Big Brother.

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Will UK One Day “Rue” Brexit?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 18, 2019

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.

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In the Face of Trump, Be Aeneas Strong

By Robin Bates | Published: December 17, 2019

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.

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Trump Love: I Lie with Him and He with Me

By Robin Bates | Published: December 16, 2019

Shakespeare Sonnets 138 and 147 describe Trump Love only too well.

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Strange Love: How the GOP Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Donald Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: December 15, 2019

Are you a Republican worried about Donald Trump? Just embrace him without reservation and your worries are over.

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Let the Evening Come

By Robin Bates | Published: December 14, 2019

Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come” takes the terror out of darkness by reminding that “God does not leave us comfortless.”

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Lit and Life: My Intellectual Trajectory

By Robin Bates | Published: December 12, 2019

I’ve long held that great literature impacts history harder than lesser literature. I trace the evolution of my ideas in today’s post.

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13 Books That (Kind of) Changed America

By Robin Bates | Published: December 11, 2019

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.

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