Tag Archives: Marriage

One Man Loved the Pilgrim Soul in You

By Robin Bates | Published: August 21, 2024

In which I explain how Yeats’s “When You Are Old and Gray” frames the dedication that opens my book.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 6, 2024

For my wedding anniversary, I turn to my favorite literary couple: Levin and Kitty in “Anna Karenina.”

By Robin Bates | Published: February 15, 2024

In which I use one of Swift’s birthday poems to celebrate my Julia’s birthday.

By Robin Bates | Published: August 8, 2023

In an essay written 12 years ago, I announce a special event with a backdrop of Mary Oliver’s blackberries.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 24, 2023

Two poems to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, by Kunitz and Fanthorpe.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 8, 2022

A James Weldon Johnson poem for our 49th wedding anniversary.

By Robin Bates | Published: June 22, 2021

One answer to how Austen’s Fanny Price resists the unrelenting family pressure to marry Crawford: she has read Richardson’s “Clarissa.”

By Robin Bates | Published: June 17, 2021

For upcoming Father’s Day, here’s a poem about father tenderness by Li-Young Lee.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 16, 2021

I celebrate my wife’s 70th birthday with a Christina Rossetti love poem.