Monthly Archives: October 2020

Lost Human Voices Speak through Us

By Robin Bates | Published: October 31, 2020

May Sarton’s “All Souls” finds that a new richness comes with mourning. We acknowledge how entwined we were with those who have passed on.

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For Halloween, Read Headley’s Beowulf

By Robin Bates | Published: October 29, 2020

For Halloween, reread Headley’s new translation of Beowulf, which uses the language of millennials and generation z.

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Do Not Let Your Anger Drown You

By Robin Bates | Published: October 28, 2020

Many Trump supporters are consumed by anger. Dante shows how they construct their own hells in the process.

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Protest, Don’t Sin by Silence

By Robin Bates | Published: October 27, 2020

Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s “Protest” was written in 1914 but it might just as well have been written today given its relevance.

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Despite Trump, the Rivers Kept Speaking

By Robin Bates | Published: October 26, 2020

Jane Hirshfield’s “Fifth Day,” written five days into the Trump administration, capture the president’s war against science and the environment.

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Ostriker: Still Carried Away by America

By Robin Bates | Published: October 25, 2020

Ostriker’s “America the Beautiful” acknowledges two Americas but speaks to the ideal of indivisibility, as expressed in the “Pledge of Allegiance.”

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Parental Despair over Trump’s Orphans

By Robin Bates | Published: October 23, 2020

Spiritual Sunday I don’t throw around the word “evil” lightly, but the Trump administration deliberately and systematically tearing children away from their asylum-seeking parents was evil. Although some of the children were still breastfeeding, Trump and his minions didn’t care enough to ensure the families could be reunited, which means that he may have created […]

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Scott Atlas, a Fieldingesque Quack

By Robin Bates | Published: October 22, 2020

Fielding’s jabs at quack doctors in “Tom Jones” are suddenly relevant again given Trump’s approach to the pandemic.

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Trump as a Gibbering Ice Giant

By Robin Bates | Published: October 21, 2020

For those expecting a coherent debate out of Trump tonight, check out the ice giant Nimrod in Dante’s “Inferno.” We can expect the same incoherence from the president.

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