Tag Archives: Nature

The Erotic Call of the Pear Tree

By Robin Bates | Published: April 19, 2013

Zora Neale Hurston has one of the most erotic descriptions of a blossoming tree that you will find anywhere.

By Robin Bates | Published: January 27, 2013

For Mary Oliver, the season’s first snow fall raises existential questions and then answers them in its own way.

By Robin Bates | Published: January 15, 2013

A rainbow sighting led to a discussion about how humans often turn to nature for guiding metaphors.

By Robin Bates | Published: November 28, 2012

Oliver’s “Fall Song” captures the “rich spiced residues” of autumn.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Fall Song", Autumn, Mary Oliver | Comments closed

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2012

As Scott Bates sees it, trees in autumn are involved in a joyous striptease.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Maple Dance", Autumn, Scott Bates | Comments closed

By Robin Bates | Published: November 11, 2012

In his haunting “Ode to a Nightingale,” Keats imagines himself as a homesick Ruth standing “amid the alien corn.”

By Robin Bates | Published: October 31, 2012

“Sandy” conjures up for me a traumatic childhood reading experience along with a passage from “The Tempest.”

By Robin Bates | Published: October 30, 2012

The onslaught of Hurricane Sandy reminds us of King Lear’s storm experience.

By Robin Bates | Published: October 21, 2012

Describing the slaughter of the buffalo herds by whites, Mary Oliver draws on Sioux religion to imagine them as not altogether gone.