Here’s a question for you. Which classic song began as Scrambled Eggs, was a song that the songwriter couldn’t convince any other singer to record, and yet went on to become the most-covered song every written? The answer is ‘Yesterday’, now one of the most popular and best-known Beatles songs. […]
Other News
A Summary and Analysis of Langston Hughes’ ‘Harlem’
‘Harlem’ is a short poem by Langston Hughes (1901-67). Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance in New York in the 1920s. Over the course of a varied career he was a novelist, playwright, social activist, and journalist, but it is for his poetry that Hughes is now […]
A Summary and Analysis of Toni Cade Bambara’s ‘Raymond’s Run’
‘Raymond’s Run’ is a 1971 short story by Toni Cade Bambara (1939-95) which originally appeared in the anthology Tales and Short Stories for Black Folks. In the story, a young girl named Hazel Parker prepares for a race; Bambara uses this plot to explore the challenges young black women face […]
A Summary and Analysis of Mary Oliver’s ‘Morning Poem’
‘Morning Poem’ is a poem by the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), a poet who has perhaps not received as much attention from critics as she deserves. It’s been estimated that she was the bestselling poet in the United States at the time of her death, so a few words […]
A Summary and Analysis of Maya Angelou’s ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’
‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’ is a well-known poem by Maya Angelou (1928-2014). It is the title poem from Angelou’s 1993 collection Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, which was marketed as a children’s book although Angelou did not originally conceive the poems as being specifically for children.