Tag Archives: Lucille Clifton

Rising Again to Dance

By Robin Bates | Published: July 18, 2010

Chidi Okoye (Nigeria) Spiritual Sunday I refute Berkeley thus, Samuel Johnson famously said. And kicked a rock. Bishop Berkeley was the 18th century idealist philosopher who asked how we know reality is really there if we are dependent upon our senses for perceiving it. Is the rock in existence when we turn our backs? Johnson’s […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "To Be Alive", Bishop Berkeley, Dance, Gregory Orr, materialism, Religion, Samuel Johnson, Science, Spirituality | Comments closed

Children Commence, Parents Let Go

By Robin Bates | Published: May 17, 2010

Flowers for Justin This past Saturday St. Mary’s College held its graduation and, as always, it was a time of good-byes. Good-byes are the theme of today’s post. One good-bye was to poet Lucille Clifton, a former member of the faculty whose poem “blessing the boats (at St. Mary’s)” has become a regular part of […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "blessing the boats", "lesson of the falling leaves", death and dying, Education | Comments closed

Jackie Robinson, Poetry in Motion

By Robin Bates | Published: April 24, 2010

Jackie Robinson steals home Sports Saturday In the memorial service held at St. Mary’s College for Lucille Clifton two weeks ago, I learned that she had three special heroes: Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson. Robinson, of course, was the African American player who broke the baseball color line in 1947, which he […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Baseball, Jackie Robinson, Sports | Comments closed

Poems for Abuse Victims

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2010

Lucille Clifton Having attended a memorial ceremony for the recently departed poet Lucille Clifton this past Saturday (see yesterday’s post), today I commemorate her by putting some of her poems to good use. Catholic priest molestation has been in the news recently (less the molestation, which tragically occurs in all walks of life, than the […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "forgiving my father", "man who killed the bear", "moonchild", "shapeshifter poems", Child Abuse, sex | Comments closed

Poetic Lifelines for Those Left Behind

By Robin Bates | Published: April 12, 2010

Lucille, daughters, and granddaughter On Saturday night St. Mary’s College held a memorial service for Lucille Clifton, the noted American poet who was also our teacher, colleague and friend for almost twenty years. For me, the most moving part of the ceremony was hearing Lucille’s remaining three daughters reading their favorite poems. Or rather, they chose […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "february 13, "homage to my hips", "i was born with 12 fingers", 1980", death and dying, Mothers and Daughters | Comments closed

God Send Easter–and Hats

By Robin Bates | Published: April 4, 2010

Spiritual Sunday/ Easter With this post I am beginning a new series, to appear each Sunday, on literature and spirituality. There is much great literature that speaks directly to religious and spiritual matters, and this gives me an extra opportunity to share some fine poems. At present I am anticipating that these posts will involve […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "god send easter", Easter, Religion | Comments closed

Rolled Round with Rocks, Stones and Trees

By Robin Bates | Published: March 4, 2010

William Wordsworth One day Robinson Crusoe, the next William Blake, the next William Wordsworth. Thanks to four or five classes cancelled due to snow, my Introduction to Literature class is careening through the 18th and early 19th centuries. But we still had time to stop and contemplate Wordsworth’s wondrous lyric “A slumber did my spirit […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "poem in praise of menstruation", "Slumber did my spirit seal", death and dying, teaching poetry, Williams Wordsworth | Comments closed

The Light that Came from Lucille Clifton

By Robin Bates | Published: February 15, 2010

I have just heard about the death of poet Lucille Clifton and I still can’t wrap by head around the news. Even as I write this sentence, the opening paragraph of a story by James Baldwin (whom Lucille knew well) comes to me: I read about it in the paper, in the subway, on my […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Suffering | Comments closed

Aspiring to Be a Dwarf

By Robin Bates | Published: September 4, 2009

Continuing the Lord of the Rings discussion, here’s an interesting insight passed on to me by my friend Rachel Kranz about my last entry. I was interpreting my adolescent fondness for Gimli the dwarf as an indication that I felt myself a dwarf, hunkered down and plodding. Rachel says that she was stunned by this self-description […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged adolescence, Flies, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jean Paul Sartre, Lord of the Rings | Comments closed