Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’
Toni Morrison’s “Remember: The Journey to School Integration.”
Not long ago I was in a local library’s children section and I came upon Toni Morrison’s 2004 children’s book Remember: The Journey To School Integration. I wasn’t aware of this book by Toni Morrison. Remember is the story of school integration geared towards younger readers and told through photos and text. In the text…
Read MoreIn Autumn, In Ohio, Long Ago: Walt Whitman’s “Come Up From The Fields Father”
I was leafing through the “Drum-Taps” section of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass a few years ago and reread many of the poems in this section, including “Come Up From The Fields Father.” As had happened many times before, I was moved by the compassion and tenderness that are present throughout this section of Whitman’s…
Read MoreGoing Home To Winesburg: Sherwood Anderson’s Clyde, Ohio
A woman, yearning for a lover who left years ago, sheds her clothes one night and walks in the rain. A man living alone, near the ravine at the edge of town, fears the expressive power of his own hands. A bearded minister smashes his fist through a stained glass window when he sees a…
Read MoreRodger Young and the Mystery of the “Common Man”
In the McPherson Cemetery in Clyde, Ohio, Rodger Young’s grave is a humble kind of space when measured against the monuments to two other military heroes on the same ground. At the cemetery’s entrance is an imposing monument to General James McPherson, the second highest-ranking Union officer killed during the Civil War. A statue of…
Read MoreAmerica’s Most Famous “Football Poem”: James Wright’s “Autumn Begins In Martin’s Ferry, Ohio”
It begins in August, in the dog days of summer, when the scent of cut grass, blistered from lack of rain, hovers in the air. Weeks before the school doors open for a new year, the football players are at school, early in the morning, dressing silently in their gear for the first of the…
Read MoreAn Autumn Classic: “Hang On Sloopy” and the OSU Marching Band
It was fifty years ago–on October 9, 1965– that The Ohio State University Marching Band first played the McCoys’ monster hit “Hang On Sloopy” during an OSU football game. The song has become a football season staple ever since, traditionally played during the transition from the third to the fourth quarter. Whenever I recall my…
Read MoreThe Small Town in the Machine Age: Sherwood Anderson’s “Poor White”
For those generally familiar with American literature, particularly that of the early twentieth century, the name Sherwood Anderson likely brings to mind his famous collection of interconnected short stories called Winesburg, Ohio (1919). This book is one of a number appearing around the time that helped, as is often said in some literary histories, to…
Read MoreAmerica’s Teacher: William Holmes McGuffey
American educator William Holmes McGuffey, famous for creating his McGuffey Readers, an influential series of school texts in 19th century America, was born on September 23, 1800 in western Pennsylvania. He received a sparse education in his childhood and youth, but learned enough to eventually teach in the one-room country schools of rural Ohio after…
Read MoreDer Dunbar: Paul Dunbar’s German-American Dialect Poem “Lager Beer”
It’s Oktoberfest season around the world, so I’ve decided to highlight an interesting poem of Paul Dunbar’s in honor of the occasion. Oktoberfest is a sixteen-day long beer and folk festival held in Munich each year in September that has inspired other similar celebrations around the world. The poem is “Lager Beer,” an early dialect…
Read MoreJesse Stuart’s “Hie to the Hunters”
Recently on this blog I profiled the noted Appalachian author Jesse Stuart. Stuart, born in Greenup County, Kentucky in 1906, was a prolific writer who published novels, short stories, essays, books for children and youth, and autobiography. His memoir of teaching in rural Kentucky, The Thread That Runs So True, published in 1949, has long…
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