Tag: poetry
They Stood On Their Feet
The poetry in this book captures some of those everyday moments and holds them up in a light that makes possible another kind of clarity, not that of simply worded declarations on a page, but that which concerns our own selves and souls.
The Bridge and the Breach: A Review of Indigenous by Jennifer...
It is a hybrid, sacramental understanding of the earth and matter and of being in the world. She seems to say that even if the earth of Chilhowee is dry or the trees of the Smokies are stunted, we must cherish them because they remain good.
Learning to Read “the Book in Front of Us”
As the fall semester looms, the minutia of meetings and syllabi revisions threatens to drain the excitement from my impending return to the classroom....
Fierce Velleity: Poetry as Antidote to Acedia
In “Lying,” the late Richard Wilbur diagnoses one of our age’s endemic ills with the paradoxical phrase “fierce velleity.” For those of us who...
Absurd Wisdom: An Apology for Euthyphro
“Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom…God chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the wise.” (1 Cor. 1:26-27)
The...
Donald Hall and the Unsettling of American Letters
When Donald Hall passed away last week the obituary in his local New Hampshire newspaper made clear what an exceptional and instructive life he...
Some Permanent Things In Print
In an endnote to The Idea of a Christian Society, T.S. Eliot makes this categorical claim:
Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things:...
Despair, Delight, and the Decentered Self
Berwyn, PA. The Fine Delight Interview Series with Catholic authors, conducted by the author of the book of the same name, Nick Ripatrazone, has...
Craft First
As part of my recent visit to Hillsdale College, where I read from my forthcoming book, The Violent and the Fallen, I gave a...
A Footloose Spring Day
On a gorgeous April Wednesday I am filling in as substitute homeschool teacher. We do arithmetic; we do a language lesson about adverbs and...