News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
We’ve been picking blueberries, eating the squash and tomatoes and green beans from our garden, and enjoying mild summer temps here in Western PA. Summer is in full swing, and I’m doing my best to pay enough attention and to be grateful enough, to crib from one of my favorite Wendell Berry poems.
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In this week’s Water Dipper, I recommend essays on journalism, poetry, and play.
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Gillis Harp reviews Matthew Continetti’s he Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism and concludes that “Continetti writes clearly, and the story, if oversimplified and occasionally self-serving, is an illuminating, engaging, and enjoyable introduction for those who want a popular – but not a populist – chronicle.”
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Casey Spinks responds to the new photos taken by the Webb telescope. While these are impressive, Spinks “would rather see starlit skies free of light pollution rather than the most detailed and gorgeous pictures of lightyear-distant phenomena. These two options are in fact a dichotomy, if we recognize the consequences of the choices we are making. “
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I offer a recap of the Convivium gathering in Wales on Wendell Berry and local memory: “When memories are abstracted from their origins, they often become brittle shards, easily wielded by demagogues or marketers. Or course rooted memories can be unhealthy in their own ways: they can molder and foster resentments and prejudices. Nevertheless, the best alternative to these toxic forms of memory is not a cosmopolitan cabinet of curiosities, but a redemptive and forgiving and sustaining community of memory.”
This week a copy of Christian Poetry in America Since 1940: An Anthology, edited by Micah Mattix and Sally Thomas, showed up in my mailbox. It’s just over a month until it’s more broadly available, but it’s a good anthology and worth pre-ordering. Here’s the blurb I wrote for it: “In his introduction to England’s Antiphon, George MacDonald wrote that he hoped his anthology of English Christian poets might form ‘a chapel in the great church of England’s worship.’ In the distinctively American chapel erected by Christian Poetry in America, readers will hear the voices of well-known poets such as Dana Gioia, Tracy K. Smith, and Christian Wiman, but they will also encounter poets such as Benjamin Myers and Chelsea Wagenaar who should be better known. Brief yet perceptive introductions to each poet frame the selections and orient readers to the many facets of Christian practice and poetic art that form this living tradition. By inviting us to step inside America’s vibrant—yet often overlooked—chapel of Christian poetry, Micah Mattix and Sally Thomas have given the church a rich gift. Tolle lege.”
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro