Monthly Archives: March 2022

The Best Minds Destroyed by Social Media

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2022

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by social media,” write a couple of tweeting satirists, referencing Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

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What Russia Can Expect If It Wins

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2022

If the Russians were to conquer Ukraine, Steinbeck’s “The Moon Is Down” gives us a good picture of what could happen next.

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Murakami and Kyiv’s Zoo Crisis

By Robin Bates | Published: March 8, 2022

The Kyiv Zoo is finding itself caught up in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Murakami anticipates such a situation in “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.”

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The Decision to Stay or to Leave

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2022

To leave Ukraine or stay in it: these poems grapple with such a dilemma.

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Putin, Like Satan, Assaults Humankind

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2022

Putin invading Ukraine is very much like Satan’s attack on Adam and Eve in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”

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My Lenten Reading: The Faerie Queene

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2022

For this year’s Lenten reading I will be taking on Spenser’s “Faerie Queene.”

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Vladimir Putin as Sauron

By Robin Bates | Published: March 3, 2022

Putin resembles Sauron in various unsettling ways–and like as with Sauron, the world had a chance to stop him early and failed.

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Finding Lyrical Beauty in the Midst of War

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2022

A gorgeous lyric by Ukrainian poet Zhadan counters Putin’s tyranny with a reminder of Ukraine’s poetic soul.

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A Poem for Ash Wednesday

By Robin Bates | Published: March 1, 2022

Eliot and Levertov have written powerful poems capturing the spirit of Ash Wednesday.

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