Happy Holiday Dear Readers!!

Another Christmas Season is upon us and I wish for each of you a blessing - filled holiday. Again this year, thank you for your faithful support of my work and of this Newsletter. Although new subscribers are frequent, the original subscribers are quite consistent. I appreciate you dear Readers very much. I hope your New Year 2009 is to your liking and filled with goodness and love.

POETRY

T.S. Eliot once entertained reactions to his poetry. One listener said that such and such a poem meant such and such. Another listener said, “But I thought it meant [a different] such and such.”
Eliot wisely said to each listener, “That’s correct. Interpretation is up to the person rather than a poem having one certain perspective.” (Of course, these words are not Eliot’s exact, but convey his point of his actual words.)

I was especially grateful for Eliot’s philosophy when I found an artist’s interpretation of my poem, “Through the Glass.” Go to this link to examine a photograph used by an artist to interpret my poem: http://www.flickr.com:80/photos/jmbo82/984900487/in/set - 72157601115895189/

Do you agree with the interpretation through the artist’s photograph? If you do not, and if we follow Eliot’s philosophy, you are both right.

BOOKS

A very rewarding aspect of writing books is contact with students. Two examples follow involving two different books.

FGM

A small group of youth taking a class at the University of Northern Iowa were studying FGM. In a combined class and theater experience a student wrote a 15 minute play using my 2005 book, Female Genital Mutilation: Legal, Cultural and Medical Issues. The play was presented November 26, 2007 in the Great Reading Room of Seerley Hall. The professor gave a brief talk following the play.

THE WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN UNDER THE TALIBAN

A Masters Degree student at a university in Boston is interviewing me on The Women of Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Peace, R