Tag Archives: Walt Whitman

An Inspiring Speech Draws Upon Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2015

Obama drew powerfully from James Baldwin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Langston Hughes, and Walt Whitman in his Selma speech.

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Advent and Horror at the Void

By Robin Bates | Published: November 30, 2014

Donald Hall’s “Advent” captures the darkness of the season, linking death with birth.

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Rich Reflects on Yom Kippur & Conflict

By Robin Bates | Published: October 5, 2014

Adrienne Rich’s meditates on the meaning of Yom Kippur in light of America’s divisions and her own longing for solitude.

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Robin Williams Made Poetry Cool

By Robin Bates | Published: August 14, 2014

Robin Williams gave us one of cinema’s greatest depictions of a literature teacher.

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Whitman’s Blast of Green Grace

By Robin Bates | Published: August 11, 2014

Scott Bates’ homage to Walt Whitman tells of amorous encounters from the grass’s point of view.

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Student Learns from Learn’d Astronomer

By Robin Bates | Published: May 16, 2014

One of my students took profound lessons from “When I Heard My Learn’d Astronomer.”

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Whoever Degrades Another Degrades Me

By Robin Bates | Published: July 22, 2013

Whitman’s “Song of Myself” calls us to imagine the experience of the Other, just as Obama asked us to imagine the perspective of young black men.

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V-E Day, Whitman, and My 15 Minutes

By Robin Bates | Published: May 9, 2013

My 15 minutes: during Slovenia’s 1995 V-E Day celebration I read Walt Whitman to a national television audience.

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Roger Ebert’s Kinship with Whitman

By Robin Bates | Published: April 7, 2013

In reflecting on death and dying, Roger Ebert turned to literature rather than to film.

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