Among Pope Francis’s great contributions to humanity was his passionate and eloquent defense of literature.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The ICEman Cometh
ICE’s attack on immigrants brings to mind Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” O’Neill’s “The Ice Man Cometh,” Stevens’s “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” and Niemöller’s “First They Came.”
Oliver: My Work Is Loving the World
in Mary Oliver’s “Messenger,” the poet provides insight into what it means to live forever.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Each and All", "Messenger", All the Pretty Horses, Auguries of Innocence, Cormac McCarthy, Easter, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Mary Oliver, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Resurrection, Secret Garden, Tintern Abbey, William Blake, William Wordsworth Comments closed
The Shot Heard Round the World
250 years after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, immortalized by a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem, Americans once again are rising up against authoritarian rule.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Concord Hymn", American Revolution, Battle of Lexington and Concord", George III, Heather Cox Richardson, James Mariott Comments closed
Good Friday and Imprisoned Immigrants
George Herbert finds Jesus amongst the marginalized in “Redemption,” a good message for America on this Good Friday.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged George Herbert, Good Friday, imprisoned immigrants, Redemption Comments closed
How Toxic Masculinity Imprisons Men
Those men who are embracing toxic masculinity make themselves vulnerable since it’s so easy to deflate them. Lady Montagu pointed this out in an 18th century poem.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Hustand", Chaucer, Country Wife, cuckold jokes, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, male anxiety, Sigmund Freud, toxic masculinity, Wife of Bath, William Wycherley Comments closed
Imagine the Fall from Eve’s Perspective
A Danielle Coffyn poem, posted in response to Republican’s patriarchal efforts to discourage women from voting (the SAVE act).
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "If Adam Picked the Apple", Danielle Coffyn, Feminism, John Milton, misogyny, Paradise Lost, SAVE act, Trumpism Comments closed
MAGA Reenacts Enslavement of Joseph
In sending immigrants, many innocent of any crime, to foreign prisons, Trump is reenacting the Genesis story of Joseph.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Adam Zagajewski, deporting immigrants, Genesis, Issac Bashevis Singer, John Stoehr, Joseph story, Norman Rockwell, Passover, Primo Levi Comments closed
On Deportations and an Oz Book
Illegal deportations to an El Salvadoran prison are bringing to mind a similar episode in “Rinki-Tink in Oz.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged illegal deportations, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, L. Frank Baum, Nayib Bukele, Rinki-Tink in Oz Comments closed
