Monthly Archives: December 2022

Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New

By Robin Bates | Published: December 31, 2022

“Ring Out Wild Bells” is as strong a poetic affirmation of hope as is to be found anywhere.

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Worried about BS? Read Great Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: December 29, 2022

While I enjoy Peter Brooks’s “Seduced by Story,” I wish it went further.

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The Chaotic Joys of a Family Reunion

By Robin Bates | Published: December 28, 2022

As our family gathers for a post-
Christmas reunion, I find some of the joyous chaos captured in a Rita Dove poem.

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No Other Pear Can Compare

By Robin Bates | Published: December 27, 2022

Poet Helen Mitsios’s ecstatic praise of Harry and David pears.

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Maybe Books Choose Us

By Robin Bates | Published: December 26, 2022

In Ozeki’s “Book of Form & Emptiness,” books have special ways of getting through to us.

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Oliver on the Cruel Beauty of Cold

By Robin Bates | Published: December 25, 2022

In “Cold Poem,” Mary Oliver finds a positive life message in bitter cold conditions.

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What Shines Now in the Dark of Night?

By Robin Bates | Published: December 24, 2022

Rilke’s “Birth of Christ” emphasizes the simplicity of the moment.

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Jesus as Refugee

By Robin Bates | Published: December 22, 2022

Two poems that focus on Jesus as a refugee: Scott Bates’s “Witness” and Malcolm Guite’s “Refugee.”

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Fiction as Authoritarian Weapon

By Robin Bates | Published: December 21, 2022

In “Seduced by Story,” Peter Brooks warns of the dangers of narrative. Borges agrees in “Tlon Uqbar.”

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