In a recent event honoring the memory of Lucille Clifton, poet Toi Derricotte read a poem about how Clifton’s poetry opened up a relationship with the mother of a sick child. Here I share Derricotte’s poem as well as the poems she read to the mother and examine why they had the effect they did.
Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post alludes to Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” as she wonders whether Hillary Clinton should be subjected to witch trials to figure out what’s wrong with her.
A student with Crohn’s disease found a kindred soul in Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.
Like my literary namesake, I’ve had wheezles and sneezles for the past five days.
Where are the toys of yesteryear? Such is the lament of this poem by Scott Bates.
As my father struggles to retain his memory, I think of Jonathan Swift.
A Mary Oliver poems captures my fears about my father, currently hospitalized.
One of my students who suffers from bulimia finds her condition mirrored in Satan’s rebellion against God.
I seldom get sick but, when I do, I become a wimp. Generally my illnesses take the form of stabbing sinus pain, and I retreat into a cocoon of misery and imagine myself about to die. As is appropriate for my melodramatic self pity, my mind invariably fixates upon a literary scene composed during France’s […]
