Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Song of Angry Americans

By Robin Bates | Published: June 11, 2025

As Trump attends a performance of “Les Misérables,” I apply passages from the novel to his military crackdown on protest.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 10, 2025

In a commencement address, novelist Nicole Krauss made an eloquent plea for the necessity of literature in maintaining democracy.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 9, 2025

Koestler’s novel “Darkness at Noon” applies only too well to rightwing “intellectual” and fascist advocate Curtis Yarvin.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 8, 2025

Barrett Browning’s famous love sonnet to her husband takes on special resonance when one thinks of it as a marriage poem.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 7, 2025

A Pentecost poem by Franciscan priest Murray Bodo, one reminiscent of Mary Oliver’s “Crossing the Swamp”

By Robin Bates | Published: June 6, 2025

Think of the Trump-Musk spat as the gingham dog vs. the calico cat from the Eugene Field poem.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 5, 2025

Trump and Musk coming to verbal altercations is like the tigers in “Little Black Sambo” devouring each other.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 4, 2025

Two Joseph Fasano poems call out those budget cutters who are targeting the arts.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 3, 2025

In “Children’s Book” Byatt explores why the Edwardian age was such a rich time for children’s lit.