Author Archives: Robin Bates

Literature on Why Taxes Are Good

By Robin Bates | Published: April 14, 2024

Edgar A. Guest has a fun poem in favor of taxes. And Dickens unloads on those with money who avoid paying them.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged billionaires, Charles Dickens, Edgar A. Guest, Hard Times, Taxes, wealth inequality | Leave a comment

The Healing Power of Biblical Stories

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2024

In her new book about Biblical healing stories, Hess uses the Gospel’s narrative richness to address issues of depression.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bible, Biblical healing stories, Depression, Doubt, doubting Thomas, Lory Widmer Hess, When Fragments Make a Whole | Leave a comment

Wyatt Prunty on Faith and Imagination

By Robin Bates | Published: April 11, 2024

In a talk on “Faith and the Imagination,” poet Wyatt Prunty talked about the faith required in the creative process–which is also like faith in one’s children growing up.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Learning the Bicycle", "On the Death of My Son", "Writer", Ben Jonson, creative process, Richard Wilbur, Wyatt Prunty | Leave a comment

How Quixote Hones Problem-Solving Skills

By Robin Bates | Published: April 10, 2024

Works that employ meta-fiction to break down the boundaries between the real and the fantastical teach us how to think outside the box.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Angus Fletcher, Aristophanes, breaking the fourth wall, counterfactual thinkiing, Don Quixote, Lysistrata, Miguel de Cervantes, Plautus, Pseudolus, Wonderworks | Comments closed

Blake on Racism and Child Abuse

By Robin Bates | Published: April 9, 2024

Blake’s “Little Black Boy,” quoted by Lamott in her latest book, is a complex exploration of racism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Holy Thursday", "Little Black Boy", Anne Lamott, child poverty, Children, GOP, racism, Somehow, William Blake | Comments closed

Democracy under Assault? Stand Firm

By Robin Bates | Published: April 8, 2024

How to withstand Trump’s incessant assaults on democracy? Be like Lizzie in “Goblin Market.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christina Rossetti, cults, Donald Trump, Fascism, Goblin Market, Herman Melville, Moby Dick | Comments closed

Two Poems on the Magic of Eclipses

By Robin Bates | Published: April 7, 2024

Two poems, by Wilcox and Trestman, capture the magic of eclipses.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Eclipse", Deborah Trestman, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, solar eclipse | Comments closed

Stranger Than Fiction’s Easter Message

By Robin Bates | Published: April 6, 2024

The film “Stranger Than Fiction” has a profound Lenten/Easter theme.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Easter, Green Gospel, John Gatta, Lent, Stranger Than Fiction | Comments closed

A Poem for When You’re Feeling Weary

By Robin Bates | Published: April 4, 2024

Swinburne’s “Garden of Proserpine,” a good poem for when you’re feeling fed up with life.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Garden of Proserpine", "Lotus Eaters", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Depression, Sigmund Freud, T. S. Eliot, Waste Land | Comments closed