News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
If you’re interested in meeting some other Porchers, do check our 2021 Porches page to see if any gatherings are happening in your region.
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In my weekly Water Dipper, I recommend essays about Gerald Russello, lyceums, and the common good.
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I was thrilled to have the opportunity to interview Paul Kingsnorth. We discussed his fiction, the prospects for an agrarian or localist tradition, and how we might avoid the dead-ends of today’s political debates.
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Paul Krause commends the poetry of Catullus. He is not a saint. He is not a moral poet. But his crudity and madness still dance with the shadows of truth and echo with the cry of the human heart.
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Robert Grano celebrates the writing of Ronald Blythe on his 99th birthday. What makes Blythe a joy to read is his rare combination of literary erudition, keen observation of both men and nature, and a reserved, peaceful piety. What is immediately apparent and most appealing about his work is his obvious care for everything he writes about.
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Alan Cornet talks with Alan Noble about You Are Not Your Own in the latest episode of Cultural Debris.
Crawford Gribben is launching a new journal: The Round Tower Review. The first issue includes a long and wonderful narrative poem by my friend Seth Wright, essays on gardening, words, and reading, and an interview with Paul Kingsnorth. To whet your appetite, here’s a snippet from the Kingsnorth interview:
I’m very interested in when things end, because that really reveals the big questions at the heart of things. When things are really shaken up, and when worlds end and new worlds begin, we can get to the big questions. We can really see what it means to be human in a way that we just can’t when we are comfortably tootling along, because we’re not forced up against our limits and the big questions unless things change in a big way.