Monthly Archives: March 2025

Berry and Milton on Love and Hate

By Robin Bates | Published: March 20, 2025

Wendell Berry’s insight into the nature of hate recalls Satan’s soliloquy in “Paradise Lost.” It also helps explain Trumpist resentment.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Sabbath Poems", John Milton, Paradise Lost, resentment, Trumpism, Wendell Berry | Comments closed

On Watching Spring Come In

By Robin Bates | Published: March 19, 2025

Thomas Gray’s beautiful “Ode on the Spring” looks to the insect world for lessons on life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Ode on the Spring", "Spring", Mary Oliver, Seasons, Thomas Gray | Comments closed

Trumps Wants to “Kill All the Lawyers”

By Robin Bates | Published: March 18, 2025

Trump wants, at least metaphorically, to “kill all the lawyers.” The line is delivered by an insurrectionist and bad man in “Henry VI, Part II.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Donald Trump, Henry VI Part 2, lawyers, rule of law, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

On the Leopards Eating Faces Party

By Robin Bates | Published: March 17, 2025

Some liberals are finding solace in remorseful Trumpists wondering how the “Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party” could have turned on THEM. Kipling’s story about the leopard’s spots is worth revisiting here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "At Kenneth Burke's Place", "Epistle from Mrs. Younge to Her Husband", Donald Trump, FAFO, How the Leopard Got His Spots, Just So Stories, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Leopards Eating People's Faces Party, MAGA remorse, William Carlos Williams | Comments closed

Flowers for St. Patrick’s Day

By Robin Bates | Published: March 16, 2025

A rural Irish poem by Patrick Kavanagh for St. Patrick’s Day.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "One", Ireland, Patrick Kavanagh, St. Patrick's Day | Comments closed

God’s Wonders in Appalachia

By Robin Bates | Published: March 15, 2025

In “Flight Behavior,” Kingsolver tries to reconcile southern fundamentalism with an environmental consciousness.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Appalachia, Barbara Kingsolver, climate change, Flight Behavior | Comments closed

Trump Christians and Child Abuse

By Robin Bates | Published: March 13, 2025

Another MAGA pastor has been indicted for sexual abuse. Goldsmith’s comic poem “Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog” puts the sanctimonious in their place.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Snake", Donald Trump, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, Oliver Goldsmith, Robert Morris, sexually abusive pastors | Comments closed

What Makes a Nation Strong? Not Fascism

By Robin Bates | Published: March 12, 2025

Emerson’s “A Nation’s Strength” is must reading in this time of trial.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Nation's Strength", Fascism, patriotic resistance, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Trumpism | Comments closed

How May Justus Broke Racial Barriers

By Robin Bates | Published: March 11, 2025

May Justus’s “New Boy in School” broke new racial ground when it was published in 1963. The book is dedicated to me and my brothers.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Civil Rights Movement, May Justus, New Boy in School, racism, segregation | Comments closed