Thursday, March 28, 2024

Some Thursday Readings


Words, words, words: On the Bard’s 400-hundred-year legacy – Amit Majmudar at New Criterion

Memory – poem by G.K. Chesterton at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

That crayon – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher. 

 

Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

When Life Betrays You, Only Love Remains – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book review on The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder.

 

Afghan Terror’s Return – Jeffrey Gedmin at American Purpose.

 

Rogue Prosecutors and the Rise of Crime – Cully Stimson at Imprimis / Hillsdale College.

 

Redcar Collector, a Dark Teeside short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free today on Amazon.

 

Painting: The Chandos portrait of William Shakespeare, circa 1600-1610, attributed to John Taylor

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

When Your Characters Take Over the Story


The title for this post is something of a “Well, duh” kind of title. For a story to work well, it’s the characters who have to take over and knock the author from his perch.

 

I’ve been reading Writing Better Fiction by Harvey Stanbrough, and he says that he almost called his book Writing Better Character-Driven Fiction, until he realized it was rather redundant. “All good fiction is character-driven,” he writes. He’s not big on outlines, plotting, character sketches, erecting signposts, or anything else that might smack of planning. Instead, he says, “like real life,” he says, “authentic fiction is not planned. Like real life, authentic fiction unfolds naturally.”

 

Stanbrough has an acronym for this – WITD, or “Writing into the Dark.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

American Civil War: prize-winning new book reveals plight of underage soldiers – The National Tribune (Australia). My review of Of Age can be found here.

 

Booknotes: The War That Made America: Essays Inspired by the Scholarship of Gary W. Gallagher – Civil War Books and Authors. 

 

Our Banner in the Sky – Jon Tracey at Emerging Civil War.

 

“Imagine Mountains,” a poem on the 150th anniversary of Robert Frost’s birth – Carey Jobe at Society of Classical Poets.

 

224 Feet of Fencing – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian. 

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Poets and Poems: Robert Schultz and "Into the New World"


I’m not sure how to describe Robert Schultz. Poet. Novelist. Photographer. Artist. All of the above.  

He’s written one novel, The Madhouse Nudes, the story of an artist who, in painting women, is trying to seem them truly. He’s co-authored an art book, War Memoranda: Photography, Walt Whitman, and Memorials, which also became an exhibition, and We Were Pirates: a Torpedoman’s Pacific War with James Shell . He’s written four poetry collections. His most recent work is Specimens of the Plague Year: notes and art, the “plague year” being 2020, the year of COVID. He’s also helped translate Wonderland: New & Selected Poems by Sarwat Zahra. 

What I’ve first turned to is one of his poetry collections, Into the New World (2020). In a word, it’s stunning. 

To continue reading, please see me post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Don’t Let the Old Man In – Garry Rodgers at Dying Words.

 

Waiting on Spring – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

Among the missing, among the dead: black poetry in America – William Logan at New Criterion.

 

How an Author Can Prevent Burnout – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Sugaring, poem by Raymond Holden – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Monday, March 25, 2024

“In the Shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral” by Margaret Willes


The first time I was in St. Paul’s Churchyard was May of 1983. My wife and I had traveled to London to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. On a Sunday afternoon, she was resting in our hotel room, and I’d hopped a tube train to visit the newly opened Museum of London before walking around St. Paul’s a few blocks to the south. At 3 p.m., I was standing in front of St. Paul’s when the church bells began to peal. It was one of those “just stop and listen moments.” 

Last fall, we were once again in the churchyard, visiting the Temple Bar exhibition just to the north of the church, and then a few days later we toured the cathedral itself. We walked around the churchyard, visited a gift and souvenir shop, and took our “standing in front of the cathedral” tourist photos. We knew the basic history of the cathedral – Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt the church followed its destruction in the Great Fire of 1666. And we knew that the area around the church had been heavily bombed during World War II; the church itself took one major hit but was protected by the firewatchers stationed on the roof and nearby.

 


But the area around the church has a long and momentous history, as writer Margaret Willes details in In the Shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral: The Churchyard that Shaped London. The history of the area is inevitably linked to the history of the church, but also to much more.

 

In medieval times, the yard was host to speeches and sermons. The Reformation, Counter-Reformation and New Reformation were argued and fought here. The yard witnessed a few executions. Once the printing press was invented, printers set up shop in this area, mostly printing religious tracts and documents. They eventually evolved into book printers and publishers, both in St. Paul’s Churchyard and nearby Paternoster Row. Publishers branched out into selling books directly to the public, becoming the cradle and center of Britain’s book publishing industry.

 

Willes tells this fascinating history well. The chapters on the Great Fire (and how printers thought they could secure their stocks inside the church itself) and the rebuilding by Wren are especially good. She provides detail in just the right amounts. The people come alive, and their stories become the stories of the churchyard. 

 

Margaret Willes

Willes is the former publisher at the National Trust who now writes books on cultural and botanical history. Her works include Liberty over London BridgeThe Curious World of Samuel Pepys & John EvelynThe Gardens of the British Working ClassThe Making of the English GardenerReading Matters Five Centuries of Discovering BooksThe Domestic Herbal, and Scenes from a Georgian Life.

 

The story of St. Paul’s Churchyard ends when the thriving society and industry around it ended – with the blitz of World War II. Other than the cathedral itself, much of the surrounding area was destroyed. But as Willes tells it, what had been there was a wonder.

 

Related:

 

Margaret Willes on The Shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral – interview with Aspect of History.

 

In the Shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral – Margaret Willes (1666) – podcast at Travels Through Time. 

 

Top photograph: The interior dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral

 

Some Monday Readings

 

What New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman Gets Wrong about Rural America – Wendell Berry at Barn Raiser.

 

“We Are Wrong” – a poem on Israel by Michael Vanyukov at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Why Did West Point Remove ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ From Its Mission Statement? – John Lucas at The Federalist.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

He entered the city


After Psalm 25:9, 119:81
 

He entered the city

on a beast of peace,

not as a conquering hero

but a servant,

a servant who would

suffer.

 

He entered the city

to sings and rejoicing,

to waving of palms,

to cloaks laid on his path. 

The people sang hosanna

to the servant who would

suffer.

 

He smiled as he rode

his beast of peace.

He smiled to see

rejoicing, to hear

the voices cheering

and singing his way

forward.

 

He smiled because

he knew their hearts,

the hearts soon to call

for his death. And

he loved them anyway.

He loved them because.

 

Photograph by Benjamin Recinos via Unsplash. Used with permission.


Some Sunday Readings

 

Queen Esther’s Lot: A Poem for Purim – Margaret Coats at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Four Marks of True Revival – J.T. Reeves and Douglas Sweeney at Desiring God.

 

Feminine Emotionalism and the Evangelical Conscience – G. Shane Morris at the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. 

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Saturday Good Reads - March 23, 2024


I used to read the literary magazine Guernica but stopped for an unremembered reason (probably being overwhelmed with too many subscriptions). But I enjoyed it; it had some well-written and interesting stories and articles. This past week, the magazine found itself caught in a political ringer. A moving story about Oct. 7 in Israel and what happened was published. Volunteer editors resigned, and the literary world went nuts. Naturally, the editors caved and withdrew it. And apologized. Oddly, the story is archived on Guernica’s site (at least for now).  

I first read the story in my hometown newspaper: According to the annual survey of the American Library Association, the number of book challenges skyrocketed in 2023. Well, not exactly. What happened is that the number of challenges slightly declined (affecting less than one percent of the nation’s libraries), but the ALA redefined how it reported the numbers. Naturally, no newspaper or other legacy medium questioned the report.

 

There was a time, as recently as a decade ago, when I believed I could generally count on the reporting by the Associated Press, even if newspapers and television news seemed to be binging on preconceived narratives. That changed, and AP has seemed to be going out of its way to make up for lost time. I think I began to notice this when I’d see reports of changes in AP’s Style Guide for reporters, which is what I trained on way back when. And now the stories, or at least the ones used by my hometown newspaper, and opinion pieces masquerading as news reports, and sometimes not even bothering to masquerade. This week, two chains, Gannett (as in USA Today and other newspapers) and McClatchy, announced they were dropping AP, not for content reasons, but likely because of fundamentally changed business models. 

 

If you write on Substack, and a lot of writers have flocked to it, you’d do well to pay attention to the recent change in terms of service. And you may find your writing is not welcome, if you espouse particular viewpoints. 

 

More Good Reads

 

Poetry

 

Tucson hospital, waiting room – James Matthew Wilson at New Criterion.

 

The Exeter Book: The WandererThe Seafarer, and Hail Earendel! – Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory. 

 

Joseph – G.K. Chesterton at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

“Early in the Morning” by Robert Hillyer – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Life concrete – Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Life and Culture

 

How Revolution Happens – and How to Stop It – Tucker Carlson at Modern Age.

 

Why Government is Always the Most Dangerous Source of Misinformation – Matt Taibbi at Racket News. 

 

Performative Offense – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies. 

 

The Coddling of the American Undergraduate – Rita Koganzon at The Hedgehog Review.

 

Art

 

The Exemplary Art of Anne Marie Vallotton – Andrew Roycroft at Thinking Pastorally. 

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Virtue of Slow Writers – Lauren Alwan at The Millions.

 

News Media 

 

Google’s Woke AI Wasn’t a Mistake. We Know. We Were There – Francesca Block and Olivia Rheingold at The Free Press.

 

YouTube now requires creators to disclose when realistic content was made with AI – Aisha Malik at Tech Crunch.

 

If a Millennial is Born, and No One Records It on Their Phone, Do They Really Exist? – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies. 

 

The depressed press – Ben Domenech at The Spectator.

 

British Stuff

 

The Dioramas of Petticoat Lane – Spitalfields Life. 

 

The Audience Choir – Jacob Collier



 
Painting: Reading Priest, oil on canvas by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918).

Friday, March 22, 2024

They heard the word


A
fter Hebrews 4:1-13 

They heard the word,

the same word, but

it fell as seeds

in stony ground.

To hear and not need

is to be denied rest.

 

They saw the example;

they saw the evidence

of all the works, but

the seeds washed away

with the flooding water.

To see and not heed

is to be denied rest.

 

They watched as some

entered into rest from

their works, and they

hardened their hearts.

To watch and to know

and not heed is to be

denied rest.

 

To enter into rest

requires striving,

as the word lives,

sharp, piercing, 

identifying, knowing,

exposing. Without

striving, there is no

rest.

 

Photograph by Dogukan Sahin via Unsplash. Used with permission.


Some Friday Readings

 

She Says You Get What You Get – poem by Susan Cowger at Kingdom Poets.

 

All the Colors Of – poem by Adam Whipple at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Heroes of the Old West – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Eisenhower’s Grief – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

Letting Go – poem by David Whyte.