Writings
Ohio and Ohio Valley writers and writing, literary and cultural history with occasional ventures into the greater Midwest and Upper South.
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…
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1916: Some Books From A Century Ago
As the year winds down I thought I’d take a look at some well-known books from a century ago: 1916. This list examines some works by important Midwestern writers, both fiction and nonfiction, and includes works by other authors from both the U.S. and overseas. I’ll start out here with a little background on the…
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In 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…
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The Mellowness of Autumn: James Whitcomb Riley’s “When The Frost Is On The Punkin”
In the past two years I have heard three people reference one of Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley’s most famous poems—“When The Frost Is On the Punkin.” Two were people I know who mentioned the poem—by referencing its title–in casual conversation about fall weather; the other was a television weatherman who mentioned it when discussing…
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Going 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…
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Rodger 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…
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William Inge: Small Town America On Stage
The name William Inge probably isn’t recognizable to many, but serious classic movie buffs—the kind of folks who log long hours watching movies on TCM or AMC—are probably familiar with movies based on his plays. Inge was one of the most popular and successful American playwrights of the 1950s, and four of his plays were…
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America’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…
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“That’s my middle-west”: Nick Carraway’s Christmas Memories
One of my all time favorite passages from The Great Gatsby concerns Christmas and the Midwest. The passage comes towards the end of the novel as Nick Carraway is describing the aftermath of Gatsby’s murder and preparing to leave New York. There’s something about this passage that captures that exhilaration of returning home for the…
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