Category Archives: Uncategorized

Politics Got You Down? Read Rasselas

By Robin Bates | Published: July 11, 2024

Feel depressed about Election 2024? Samuel Johnson’s “Rasselas” has some good advice.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 10, 2024

Election anxieties from listening to a seashell. That and James Stephens’s poem “The Shell.”

By Robin Bates | Published: July 9, 2024

This William Meredith captures summer on the beach.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 8, 2024

Whittier’s poem “The Women Went from Dover foreshadows MAGA’s war on women.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 7, 2024

The danger of Trump’s Supreme Court is captured in Shelley’s poem “The Masque of Anarchy.”

By Robin Bates | Published: July 6, 2024

Guite traces an old oaken altar back to the tree out of which it was made, which also blessed the elements.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 4, 2024

Think of Biden as Beowulf facing the dragon at the end of his reign. And then think of how Wiglaf responds, which is to support him fully.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 3, 2024

America’s strength as always lain in its diversity, as Walt Whitman well knew. “I Sing America” is a great poem to read on July 4th.

By Robin Bates | Published: July 2, 2024

I announce my forthcoming book and contrast it with a similar book–“Dangerous Fictions”–coming out soon.