Changes in climate can cause us to see classic poems in a new light. Case in point: Keats’s “To Autumn.”
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Tag Archives: death and dying
Will Warm Days Never Cease?
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "To Autumn", Autumn, climate change, John Keats, Seasons, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | Comments closed
A Blessing We Cannot Begin To Fathom
Jan Richardson reminds readers not to offer facile rationalizations to those who have lost loved ones. She also reassures that the heart a “stubborn and persistent pulse.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Blessing for the Brokenhearted", Jan Richardson | Comments closed
Clean Rooms, Despair of the Mind
Mary Oliver’s “University Hospital, Boston” captures my experience of having a friend in a hospital. Oliver understands the various ironies involved.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "University Hospital Boston", Mary Oliver, sickness | Comments closed
Rachel Kranz, R. I. P.
When my best friend Rachel Kranz died yesterday. I turned to Shelley’s “Adonais” for comfort.
Once There Was Light
I turned to Jane Kenyon’s “Having It Out with Melancholy” when a friend’s illness suddenly took a turn for the worse.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Having It Out with Melancholy", cancer, Illness, Jane Kenyon | Comments closed
Lit Comforts an ALS Sufferer
This past March an ALS sufferer spoke eloquently, shortly before her death, about how she turned to Sophocles, Kafka, and Shakespeare for comfort.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged ALS, Franz Kafka, Hamlet, Lynette Williamson, Metamorphosis, Oedipus, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed
Lear, Trump & the Tyrant’s Loneliness
Donald Trump is like Lear in that both are trapped in a loneliness of their own making and, in their despair, both make the lives around them miserable. Lear finds his soul again at the end of the play, however. It might take a similar adversity for Trump to do so as well.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, fear of death, King Lear, loneliness, William Shakespeare | Comments closed
Memorial Day: Anthem for Doomed Youth
With Memorial Day, there is the danger that we will romanticize the deaths of the fallen rather than face up to the full tragedy. This tension can be seen in a number of World War I poems, some of which romanticize the fallen while others dwell on the absurdity of their deaths.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "For the Fallen", "I Have a Rendezvous with Death", "Soldier", Alan Seeger, Laurence Binyon, Memorial Day, Rupert Brooke, war, Wilfred Owen, World War I | Comments closed
The Fires and the Black River of Loss
We recently held a memorial service for my dear friend and colleague Kate Chandler. I read from some of Kate’s eloquent nature writings and concluded with a Mary Oliver poem.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "In Blackwater Woods", Kate Chandler, Mary Oliver | Comments closed