I'd read one of the stories in Clifford Simak's City before, "Desertion," and loved it. I still think I love that story best, but the whole book is definitely worth reading. In fact, this is one book that I would love to teach, for several reasons ( Read more... )

Joan Slonczewski's novel A Door Into Ocean presents two very different words, one world of men, wars, and fear and the other of women, peace, and sharing. At first, I feared this novel would be no more than a vision of separation based in simplistic dichotomies (e.g., women = good, peaceful, loving and men = bad, violent, hateful), but Slonczewski ( Read more... )

Yesterday and today I've spent a lot of time reading up on the tradition of nonviolence in American literature. Thus far I've mostly been reading fairly contemporary poets who write about nonviolence or about resisting violence. Here are a few short poems I like:

Learning--William StaffordA piccolo played, then a drum ( Read more... )