Monthly Archives: March 2011

Pretty Is Not What Blazes the Trail

As the ice (or “iron rind”) starts dissolving from the ponds, we may dream of “ferns and flowers and new leaves unfolding.” But the transition from winter to spring is a much grittier affair, characterized less by sweetness and more by lurid smells emerging from chilling mud. The real harbinger of spring may not be the bluebird but the skunk cabbage, celebrated by Mary Oliver in a powerful poem.

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The Classics, Better than Business Guides

The Republic, The Art of War, The Social Contract, The Prince, and the Tao Te Ching gave me a way of understanding the broader implications of the business choices I was making. They helped me look beyond the immediate challenges to find a greater purpose. My individual efforts seemed part of a legacy of thinkers and doers who had come before.

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Misery Loves Poetry

Yesterday a New York Times blog addressed an issue I have been wrestling with as well: whether literature is up to the string of disasters we are encountering. Sam Tanenhaus asserts that “one of the enduring paradoxes of great apocalyptic writing is that it consoles even as it alarms.” To my mind, Tanenhaus’s most interesting point is about why poetry seems to be better at responding to catastrophe than narrative prose.

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Faulkner and a Love for the Liberal Arts

Dr. Joseph Urgo wove William Faulkner into his inauguration speech as the new president of St. Mary’s College. Above all, Urgo said, “St. Mary’s exists in the public trust, offering the love of liberal learning–an impassioned, dedicated, humanistic endeavor—to all segments of society.”

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A Place of Parched and Broken Trees

My friend Alan Paskow is finally dying. The poem that comes to mind is Mary Oliver’s “Universal Hospital, Boston.” All around nature is thriving, a contrast with the clean antiseptic rooms within the hospital. The contrast shows up as well in the patient’s eyes, which “are sometimes green and sometimes gray,/and sometimes full of humor, but often not.”

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March Madness and Then Some

Sports Saturday Even though it happened a week ago, I am still shaking my head at one of the most bizarre endings I have ever witnessed to a sports event. The University of Pittsburgh, ranked one in its region, and Butler University, last year’s tournament darling and eventual runner-up, were in the final seconds of […]

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The Sexual Politics of Dexter

Film Friday Last Friday I wrote about my deep distress over the season 4 finale of Dexter. (Read no further if you want don’t want the suspense ruined for you.) My friend Rachel Kranz, who introduced me to the show, wrote me the following response examining why people, men especially, find the show so captivating. […]

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The Triangle Fire and the Face of Labor

Suddenly everyone is interested in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and not only because tomorrow is the tragedy’s 100th anniversary. As the Wisconsin state legislature rolls back the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers, questions of worker protection are once again in headlines. The best poem I know that mentions the fire is “Shirt,” […]

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Ah, the Stench of Spring

The news has been so grim recently that I offer up a bit of comic verse at midweek to give you a breather. Think of it as a celebration of the stench of spring—which is to say, of the fertilizer that the farmers are spreading on their fields as the season of growth begins. The […]

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