Earlier this week, well-respected former Boston Celtic rebounding ace Paul Silas died at age 79 in North Carolina. He became the latest in a line of Celtic legends who have died in the past few years. JoJo White, John Havlicek, Sam and K.C. Jones, Tom Heinsohn, Larry Siegfried and most recently Bill Russell all preceded him in death.
This is part of a series of columns by Ada student Amelia Alexander about "reading and debriefing" poetry.
When Icicles Hang by the Wall by William Shakespeare
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the Shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whoo;
To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Don’t throw your unwanted crayons away! According to Crayola’s website, Crayola crayons are made of paraffin wax, which is refined from petroleum. That means crayons take years to biodegrade if thrown away and taken to landfill.
According to the National Crayon Recycle Program, 12 million crayons are produced each day. That makes a potential 12 million crayons going into landfill tomorrow.
Horse, A Novel (ISBN; 978-03999-56296-9) by Australian author Geraldine Brooks tells a tale of one of the greatest racehorses ever, focused through the dark camera obscura of slavery, when people could be owned like horses. This book is about that ownership.
The book tells the true history of a horse and its young Black groom named Jarret in 1850, before the Civil War. Jarret is there when the foal Darley is born. Darley's name soon becomes Lexington, and Jarret loves and stays with the horse through the animal's whole life.
While police check out why a woman let out a blood curdling scream in the Boston Public Library Reading Room, four people seated at a table together get to know each other and their writings. These are the primary characters in a book under construction by a woman named Hannah, whom we do not know, although we do hear from an unasked-for critic who gives her advice by email.
