Ezra's Essays

Category: July

  • LAMENTATIONS ON “I WISH”

    I keep two identical dictating machines on my desk.  The left one is for dictations that I turn over to Mrs. Eva Baker for transcription.  The right one is for notes about future essays.  Recently I recorded some notes on the subject of lamentations which was a subject I wanted to do an essay on. …

  • “AIN’T NOTHIN’ YOU CAN DO” — GUY CLARK, SONGWRITER

    For the past three weeks, a drought has descended upon my being which renders me largely incompetent to write essays.  I trust that the drought is not a permanent condition but is a transient affair.  In the long time that I have been writing essays, droughts have appeared from time to time.  The title of…

  • OBSCENITIES NATURALLY

    As I was growing up, there was one article of faith that had to be observed by my mother and by myself.  It had to do with the St. Louis Post Dispatch.  The Post Dispatch was an afternoon paper, of which there are very few left.  When one of the older children appeared after work…

  • THE DOCTRINE OF UP

    This essay, which I hope you will read, has its genesis in a remark made to me by a nursing aide who attends to my needs at night.  This lady, who was born in Ghana, said to me, “Would you like for me to cover you up?”  She could have said, “Would you like for…