Paradiso, Canto I
By Poetry Issue 111
Because nearing what one wants, / Our intellect is so overcome / That our memory is left behind.
Read MoreGiotto’s Ratio
By Essay Issue 59
The following remarks were given at Villa Agape in Florence, Italy, on the opening evening of Image’s Florence Seminar, September 14, 2008. IMAGE is a journal devoted exclusively to contemporary literature and art—to the present moment—but here we are in the cradle of the Renaissance. We have not come out of mere antiquarian curiosity,…
Read MoreA Disbeliever in Limbo
By Essay Issue 74
The Need EVERY COUPLE OF MONTHS, you go to the doctor looking for a new word—a name that is different from the one you have now: hypo, hyper, metastasized, malignant, benign. The hope is always for an upgrade, though it’s hard to say which names are better than others in this game. Take benign, for…
Read MoreThe Track in the Wilderness
By Poetry Issue 78
What is this world but the absence of God, his withdrawal, his distance (which we call space), his waiting (which we call time), his footprint (which we call beauty)? God could only create the world by withdrawing from it (otherwise there would be nothing but God), or by remaining in the form of absence, hiddenness,…
Read MoreThe Thing Itself: Art and Poverty
By Essay Issue 84
The following is adapted from a presentation given at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley in January 2015 during a convocation on the topic “Blessed Are You Poor: What Does It Mean to Be a Poor Church for the Poor?” I SHOULD HAVE TOLD Father Michael Sweeney that if he really…
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