Tag Archives: Family

The Chaotic Joys of a Family Reunion

As our family gathers for a post-
Christmas reunion, I find some of the joyous chaos captured in a Rita Dove poem.

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Lit Steels Spines in Face of Pressure

One answer to how Austen’s Fanny Price resists the unrelenting family pressure to marry Crawford: she has read Richardson’s “Clarissa.”

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Trollope and a Family Road Trip

A Trollope novel shaped a family trip I took into the past.

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Remembering a Father’s Tenderness

In this poem about his father, Li-Young Lee remembers a tender moment that has led to his own tenderness as an adult.

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Titanic Struggles, on the Court & at Home

This moving David Rivard poem shows how a moment in basketball can symbolically capture a contentious father-son relationship.

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I Carry You in Me Like an Embryo

Marge Piercy’s mother died during Hanukkah and the poet uses the season to reflect upon their contentious relationship.

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My Son Marries into Crusoe’s Island

Robinson Crusoe’s island may well be the home country of my new daughter-in-law.

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Family Melodrama, Iranian Style

The Oscar-winning Iranian film “Separation” builds complication upon complication as families wrestle with difficult conditions.

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The Black Honey of Summer

My son’s marriage proposal to his Trinidadian girlfriend has become bound up in my mind with a Mary Oliver poem about blackberries.

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