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How Poetry Got Religion (Again)
Wednesday October 6, 2010
As I’m reading around for an essay on religious dimensions of poetry, to be included in a forthcoming volume on religion and the arts, I’m struck by how dramatically the very topic of “religious poetry” has changed just in my lifetime. When I was in college and grad school in literature in the 1960s, God was never mentioned in my courses—except as a metaphor. The poetry even of overtly religious writers like Herbert and Donne was read for its witty word-play; that these poets were believers was an unmentioned embarrassment to my professors....
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What to Say
Tuesday October 5, 2010
A friend is dying. She’s older, my mother’s age. I’ve known Georganne, as I’ll call her, since my first book was published and she asked if I’d like to give a reading at the private library where she was a trustee. Her voice struck me on that first phone call with its bossy-but-breathy quality, no-nonsense and direct and maybe a little intimidating. When I met her in person, her smile and large blue eyes disarmed me. Here was a woman, I thought, who demanded integrity and gave the same. If you’d been her child, you wouldn’t have wanted to get caught in a lie. And at the same time, who better to comfort and defend, to say what you needed to hear?....
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Believe in Him
Monday October 4, 2010
That being the tag line for The Last Exorcism, the recent box-office release that does a far better job of updating The Exorcist than the last absurd installment of that franchise did. The “Him” in question, of course, being the devil. But not without a wink at the tag line’s double entendre, this being the axis on which the story turns: if you believe in Him (God), then you best believe in Him (Satan)....
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Spirits and Spooks
Friday October 1, 2010
I’m always surprised come mid-September when I pop into the drugstore or supermarket and first see the aisle in black and orange, yellow and purple, of fun-sized Halloween candy and plastic jack-o-lantern buckets. This is because, as a non-driver, I’m normally sweaty from walking or sitting on a crowded bus, and September isn’t cool enough to lend the chill necessary for a goosebump-inducing holiday. When October arrives, however, I’ll take a few minutes to walk through and peruse the offerings: the standard candies like M&Ms and Reese’s peanut butter cups are always there, as are the confections one can only find this time of year, like candy corn, gummy eyeballs, and wax vampire teeth. It’s these latter, more morbid sweets that delight me, because unlike many who were raised in evangelical households, I was brought up to love Halloween....
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The Actor in Question
Thursday September 30, 2010
It’s happening again. When Tobey Maguire won the iconic role of Spider-man in Sam Raimi’s webslinger trilogy, comic-book fans engaged in passionate debate. Could Maguire the right guy to play that spectacularly split personality—geeky Peter Parker and the acrobatic Spidey? Now, as director Marc Webb “reboots” the series, fans are scratching their heads. After heavily hyped auditions, the aptly-named Webb cast an actor who, at this writing, is still relatively unknown. Conversations among moviegoers go something like this....
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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
