Wise and Wherefore's 🫧
Dear friends,
It's about to get wild over at ours as my school's beginning tries to time with my kids'. Before the year begins in earnest, then, here are a few updates.
I'm pretty sure this isn't how it works, but the only person I know who's had an appendectomy (and just this year) came over to my house for brunch last month. By evening, I was in the ER 🚑 with a pain in my side. It must be going around. The docs said I had probably 48 hours before it exploded. So, on top of everything else, I had abdominal surgery and am now recovered, more or less, to my former...glory(?).
Then--and by "then," I mean two days later-- the MFA students arrived for our August residency on campus! Conviviality amassed, consecration abounded, and COVID appeared (this is still a thing, apparently). As always, I'm stunned by these writers. One graduate had a press solicit their manuscript while still in graduation robes 🎓, and another landed a publishing internship while similarly be-robed. I'd say "good luck" to them, but it seems like they've got something better.
Oh and (!) we found a house 🏠. Thanks to those of you who offered prayers, or lit incense, or explained it to their bee colonies, or who dedicated their yoga session to focusing intention on our situation. However the smoke rose, we've landed somewhere close by and with enough bedrooms to contain the wild and mewling young. (Cicely is lovely, btw, and sleeping like a saint)
Publications
Why I Go to Church was just published in Fare Foreward magazine this week. You can read it, but be forewarned: it's the most personal thing I've ever written. Perhaps you don't want to know such things as are disclosed therein. Click cautiously. 🙏🏻
The Festus paperback is out on the bookshelves! 😈 It's a thick book and feels better in the hand this way.
"Festus" is a great poem --a mine of thought and imagery. It is perfectly safe to pronounce it one of the most powerful and splendid productions of the age.
Next up: I have a shiny essay in the Mercy issue of Mockingbird; it's about the Merchant of Venice and the Karate Kid 🥋. I'll send "Mercy is for the Weak" around when it's posted online, but you can procure meanwhile the gorgeous print volume straightaway. (😲 Francis Spufford and Jeremiah Webster also appear in this issue). Here's a look.
Reading
A House Called Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Poems from Copper Canyon Press
An anthology by one of my favorite presses. I have and have loved more books from them than from any other house.Beauty is Your Destiny by Phillip Ryken
I'll probably write a full review of this book, but it's a solid and sweet intro to theological aesthetics.The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
Meditations on the creative life that would be helpful to artists of any medium.
Oddments
I loved this review by Adam Kirsch, which I think capably sums up some key generational differences and their effects on novels.
We watched the Barbie with the kids. I laughed almost maniacally the whole way through. We disagree on a number of key issues, but its sheer intelligence and sense of fun is staggering.
Next month, I'll be hosting Burl Horniachek in my Faith and Literature class for a discussion of newly translated global poetry.
Okay, Fam, that's the word. As always, and as you like, reply here and let me know what's good.
I'm in the market.