Category Archives: Race
Linda Hogan, Herman Melville: People of the Whale
April 10, 2013 The Native Americans have always been there, of course. The very name of the ship brings up their ghostly presence, for “Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts … Continue reading
Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood: Martians and Others
February 27, 2013 ‘Moby-Dick’ is about the oil industry, and the Ship of American State… The mates are the middle management. The harpooners, who are from races colonized by America one way or another, are supplying the expert tech labor. … Continue reading
Jane Austen’s Philadelphia, Toni Morrison’s Denver
January 30, 2013 2013 is the bicentennial of Pride and Prejudice, so I’ve been learning new things about Jane Austen — for instance, the fact that her aunt was named Philadelphia, Phila for short. Phila never saw Philadelphia; no, at … Continue reading
Frederick Douglass, H.D.: Egypt Again
Janurary 2, 2013 She never mentioned him and probably never read him. Still, he anticipated her. Visiting Egypt in 1887, Douglass wrote: “I do not know of what color and features the ancient Egyptians were, but the great mass of … Continue reading
Muriel Rukeyser, Wallace Stevens: Books of the Dead
December 26, 1012 There’s a picture of the two of them – Stevens standing at the back, and Rukeyser seated in front with Marianne Moore. To the left of him from where they were, and to the left of … Continue reading
Louise Erdrich, Kurt Vonnegut: Germany’s Wars
November 21, 2012 There is a longer title to Kurt Vonnegut’s famous novel: “Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too … Continue reading
Soul food: Jack Kerouac, Charles Johnson
October 17, 2012 Japhy – Gary Snyder – has no interest in the Buddhism of Chinatown, he likes only the real thing, the Zen taught in Japan. But Kerouac likes everything, especially after a feast of dim sum at Nam … Continue reading
Audre Lorde in Mexico, Maya Angelou in Ghana
September 26, 2012 2012 marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of Audre Lorde. She had died at the age of 58, after 14 years of battling with breast cancer. But even before that, Lorde had always seemed associated with … Continue reading
Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman: Songs of Myself
September 19, 2012 As of today, “Still I Rise” has 743,494 views on YouTube. There are 1,113 comments, some vituperative, including this one: “What the fuck kind of poetry is this? John Milton would rise from the dead to kill … Continue reading
Toni Morrison, Slade Morrison: More Children’s Books
September 12, 2012 Toni Morrison also had trouble with publishers. At least she managed to get it in print — The Big Box, the first of several coauthored with her son Slade, first appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1980 and, … Continue reading