W. H. Auden’s chilling “Epitaph on a Tyrant” matter-of-factly shows the deadly but seductive simplicity that characterizes dictators like Qaddafi and Assad.
Tag Archives: W. H. Auden
The Perfection and Poetry of Tyrants
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad, Dictators, Muammar Qaddafi, violence Comments closed
Back in the Day, We Parsed Sentences
Time was when grammar was king in the public schools. It didn’t seem to matter whether a student’s writing was interesting but whether it was correct. Then came the “process writing movement” and (in the lower grades) the “creative spelling movement.” The design was to unlock the writing energies that were being stifled by an […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", Age of Longing, David Adams Richards, Education, Grammar, Richard Wright Comments closed
A Death Poem Must Acknowledge the Pain
For today’s entry on poems that can come to our aid when we are confronting death, I will be looking at two. In both poems, the speaker has lost a loved one. One of them, which I have known and loved since high school and whose sentiments I agree with, now angers me. The other, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged death of a child, Funeral Blues, Highland Mary, Robert Burns, Stop All the Clock Comments closed
Poetry in the Face of Death
Because of my concerns over my friend Alan and his cancer, I will spend another week looking at the role that poetry can play as we confront death and dying. Today’s entry describes how poetry made its way into my life following the death of my son Justin, described in last week’s opening entry […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged death of a child, Fall of Icarus, Lost Children, Mary Oliver, Musee des Beaux Arts, Pieter Breugel Comments closed
