Under the Wire ☃
Alright friends,
It looks as if there’s time for one last missive before my annual Year-in-Review post. We’ve just returned from a paradisal Thanksgiving on Whidbey Island where I finally got the turkey absolutely perfect while my friend Hopkins mastered, and utterly, the apple pie. Those were two pretty big wins.
Meanwhile, I’m wrapping up grading for the fall term at SPU: my Faith and Literature class was great fun, as usual, and I’m gearing up to teach Shakespeare for the first time in a few years. Curiously, this is the most consistent subject I’ve taught over the course of my career, having offered it at Tübingen and UW as well. Stay tuned from updates from the pit.
Publications, etc.
I have a new piece over at Poems for Ephesians called “Ambassador.” This is a really cool project where lots of different poets make things based on that letter, a kind of hive-mind lectio divina maybe.
Another poem was just published at North American Anglican’s Poet’s Corner about the Garden of Eden, but it’s also about Fra Angelico, and liturgical beauty.
Most exciting, depending, that is, upon one’s cast of mind, is this new page at my website keeping tabs on individual poems while we wait for the new book to come out. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this before. It’s years between books and what if people want to see what has been happening since the last one?
I have also visited with my friends at WORD-FM again, reading poems for the radio people and have made a standalone page to collect those radio spots so you can listen anytime you like.
Advent
Some of you will recall this piece I wrote about how to practice Advent and perhaps this follow-up post with more evidence. Well, now that Mrs. W is pregnant with our third (!) I’m all the more convinced. The metaphor we are given to understand Advent is a pregnant woman. Some theologians, however, have tried to turn Advent into a little Lent, a time of waiting, of sitting in the darkness before the light comes.
But there’s a huge difference between “waiting” and “expecting.” My family is now expecting. It makes every day electric. Our little girl is coming! This week, she started punching around inside the womb with her little funny hands. She responds to my voice. It’s joyful beyond imagining. Yes, she’s not here yet, but there’s evidence that she will be, and soon. That’s what Advent is: the joyful preparation for a divine intrusion that will change our lives completely. Celebrate!
Reading
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Poems by Nick Flynn and Alice Ostriker
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Incomprehensible Certainty by Thomas Pfau
Listening
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I go whole hog on Christmas music once Advent begins–I’m supposed to be preparing my heart for a grand celebration after all, not keeping it in the dark and startling it on the 25th–but before this weekend, I was listening almost exclusively to jazz: Billy Bauer, Kenny Dorham, McCoy Tyner.
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Caedmon’s Call S/T
I’m really enjoying this new recording (Taylor’s Version) of an album I’ve cherished for 25 years now.
So, a blessed Advent to you all and a Merry Christmas thereafter. I’ll be in touch with a look back over the year in due course.
Drop a line if you have something I should read, see, or listen to (we really don’t have to trust our tastes to the 🤖)!
Tidings,
(Oh yes! and poetry books make the best Christmas presents! links below!)
🎅👇🏼