Tag: poetry
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...
Poetry and the Common Language
This piece was originally posted at the University Bookman. Check out their site for other similar articles!
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If there is one principle which is nearly...
The Song of Taillefer
Somerset, NJ. Legend has it that on the field of Hastings, as the forces of the Conqueror ascended a hill to engage the exhausted...