In an upside-down world, roles change

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Joy*

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The quiet, old, musty-smelling, echoes of history. The library has survived fires, earthquakes, floods. This makes it biblical, mythological, the field of Elysium for the mind life. I have come to this library in late spring to read, to write, to consider where my life is going. All the students have left, and I am alone with my thoughts, and the thoughts of those lining the shelves. Mute testimonies from another age. I hear the voices calling me . I walk between the stacks, selecting random volumes: 1909, 1921, 1894, 1910. The spines are creased and lined, the type worn away. I open the books and find some have not been checked out since the 1950s. There they sit, waiting patiently for someone to come along and bring them to life again by reading. The library is a four-story affair built on the side of a hill. You enter on the third floor. Spanish colonial architecture, all arches and vaulted ceilings. This is the reading area, now filled with computer stations. Above is a sort of ba...
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The thing I most appreciate about celebrated writer, Maya Angelou , is her bravery.   She spoke and wrote what was on her mind, never mincing words.   In today’s world of empty praise and false positive affirmation, this poet is a fresh ocean breeze in the heat of summer.   I love her poetry and I teach it often along with her memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings .   Her work connects back to the Harlem Renaissance writers and other African-American artists.   The title of her memoir comes from a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906).   However, she is not an artist addressing a particular race; she is a poet for the ages and for all people, a true American treasure. The Washington Post published a piece yesterday by Valerie Strauss that made clear Angelou’s ability to speak the truth.   She was exuberant about the election of President Obama, and he in turn awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.   However, she often spo...
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No Strangers To Tragedy

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