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Of a Higher Degree
Friday February 3, 2012
When I was in eighth grade, my mother gave my grandfather a book called Grandfather Remembers to give to me as a Christmas present. It was formatted along the lines of your average baby book, with blank spaces for our family tree and stories about his ancestors as well as guided blank pages for recollections of his first car, his first job, his favorite meals and holidays, as well as his marriage and children....
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A Poem is a Walk
Thursday February 2, 2012
One of the students in my Glen Online course, "Poetry as a Spiritual Practice," emailed me to ask what exactly I meant by “strolling along with a poem.” In the lecture for the lesson she was working on, I’d said that “I sometimes read a poem as if I were taking a stroll through it or along with it. The stroll is leisurely, because poetry never rushes us. Poetry paces itself so that its rhythms, its sound-echoes....
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Playing it Safe
Wednesday February 1, 2012
I’ve been having trouble starting this post. All week, I’ve been eyeing the item on iCal—blog post due to Greg Wolfe—and moving on. Not in the mood. No ideas. My last one hasn’t run yet, so I have some time. Et cetera. This morning I read Sara Zarr on Advent and Caroline Langston on Christmas with Satan. Caroline’s title alone made me shiver, first at the adversary’s name, and second, in admiration, especially as I kept....
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Song of Myself
Tuesday January 31, 2012
The ambition to some day become a writer was planted in my head sometime around 1980 in a Long John Silvers restaurant in Conneaut, Ohio. I was seated at the end of a Formica table, a plastic basket of crispy fried fish and brown hushpuppies in front of me, listening to my grandfather grill my aunt’s boyfriend, Sean. It was just me, my dad, and my grandfather all looking at Sean, who had an earring....
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Take Care of Each Other
Monday January 30, 2012
Take care of each other. That was the second of three “pearls of wisdom” my father offered as my wife and I were packing up early on New Year’s morning 2012 to head back from South Jersey to Asheville. I remember one other occasion on which he offered a father’s wisdom. Then, like now, I was about to leave him and my mother. About to leave home. (Is that the right word for the place....
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Current Issue
Issue 71
Fiction by Larry Woiwode, interview with Joe Henry, art by Fabian Debora, essay by Barry Moser.
Good Letters: The Image Blog
