Pete Hegseth denying he gave the order to kill survivors of a Navy attack is reminiscent of Macbeth distancing himself from Banquo’s murder.
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Hegseth, Banquo, and Murders at Sea
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Macbeth, Navy’s small craft attacks, Pete Hegseth, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Stoppard (R.I.P.) and a Cancer Discovery
An instance of Arcadia by the recently deceased Tom Stoppard leading to a cancer breakthrough
Macduff as the Trump Resistance
“Macbeth” is probably the best Shakespearean play for capturing the Trump presidency and Trump resistance.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Donald Trump, King Lear, Macbeth, Pete Hegseth, William Shakespeare Comments closed
A Poem for Entering December
In “Beyond the Red River,” McGrath looks out at the North Dakota prairie and embraces winter.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Poem for the Blue Heron", “Beyond the Red River", December, Mary Oliver, Midwest prairie, Tom McGrath, Winter Comments closed
Trusting the Gift Within
Merwin’s “Gift” helps us understand the meaning of Advent.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Gift", "White Owl Flies into and Out of the Field", Advent, Mary Oliver, W. S. Merwin Comments closed
My Life as Bildungsroman
Upon leaving college, I came to see literature more as a means of escaping my life than as a way of engaging with it more fully. That’s because I was unsatisfied with this life.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged bildungsroman, Don Quixote, Henry Fielding, Main Street, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sinclair Lewis, Tom Jones Comments closed
Thanksgiving, a Time to Remember
A Thanksgiving poem by Linda Pastan in which joy and melancholy are intertwined.
ICE and W.C. Williams’s Ice Box Theft
An Atlantic article applies Williams’s famous plum poet to the “Sandwich Guy” arrested by ICE for “hurling a hoagie.” But the poem applies more to the agents.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "This Is Just to Say", ICE, Sandwich Guy, William Carlos Williams Comments closed
Cliff’s Reggae Defined Jamaica
To honor Jimmy Cliff, who died yesterday, I share a Kwame Dawes poem about the importance of reggae to his appreciation of Jamaica.