Literature Link for Feb.13, 2022 — The Power of Two

• “The Poetry of Friendship, with Pickles on the Side” by Laura Lynn Brown

Part poetry and part prose, this short article offers some insights into the importance of friendship. “These pickles were part joke, part promise that she’d be over again and would save me from the embarrassment of picklelessness. Remembering and cultivating little jokes like this has always been part of our long friendship.”

https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2018/03/23/poetry-friendship-pickles-side/

• Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher. [young adult novel]

The powerful friendship of the two main characters has stayed with me for years. From the back of the 2003 Harper Teen edition: “Sarah Byrnes and Eric have been friends for years. When they were children, his fat and her terrible scars made them both outcasts. Later, although swimming slimmed Eric, she stayed his closest friend. Now Sarah Byrnes — the smartest, toughest person Eric has ever known — sits silent in a hospital. Eric must uncover the terrible secret she’s hiding, before its dark currents pull them both under.” Here is a review from Amazon” https://www.amazon.com/Staying-Sarah-Byrnes-Chris-Crutcher/dp/0060094893

• The Incredible Power of Friendship” from The Growth Equation. [non-fiction]This brief article offers “The scientific literature offers plenty of insight on what close friends do for us.” The comments from Aristotle are worth reflecting upon. He wrote that there are three kinds of friendships: Those based on utility, or based on pleasure, or based on virtue. https://thegrowtheq.com/the-incredible-power-of-friendship/

• Sonnet 29: “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” by William Shakespeare. Whenever I taught this poem, I would wonder out loud to students, “How could Shakespeare, this famous, amazing author, write about feeling insecure and untalented?!!” It always brought out good discussion. When the speaker is at his lowest point, we wonder who the friend is whose love he thinks of. “ I all alone beweep my outcast state,/ And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,/ And look upon myself and curse my fate,” Do scroll down and listen to the audio. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45090/sonnet-29-when-in-disgrace-with-fortune-and-mens-eyes

In faith,

Dale Dunnigan