Category Archives: poetry

Wonder: My New Year’s Resolution

Among the saddest lines in literature are the ones with which Nick Carraway describes his last glance at the sprawling estate on Long Island from which Gatsby watched the green light on Daisy’s dock: As the moon rose higher the … Continue reading

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Time: Advent Word 3

Today, I will borrow my contribution from”Burnt Norton,” first of the Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot, my acknowledged maestro in all things Anglican. Whenever I ponder the word time, it is this poem that informs my musings: Time present and time past Are … Continue reading

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Fruition: 2018

As I began to ponder the year soon coming to a close, it seemed necessary and fitting that I end the longest hiatus of my blog-writing career with a brief narration of the project–now complete–that has consumed my life for … Continue reading

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The Mother of Beauty: World War I in Word, Image, and Song

Published below is the text of a talk I will give tomorrow to commemorate the Armistice centenary as part of a series of events entitled “FTCC Remembers World War I: 1914-1918.” “Death is the mother of beauty,” wrote Wallace Stevens, … Continue reading

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One Doomed Youth–and 17 Million More

From July to November 1917, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was a shell-shocked second lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment, under the care of W. H. R. Rivers at Craiglockhart War Hospital. There, he became close friends with Siegfried Sassoon, who became … Continue reading

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Ennui; or, The Cat Who Read Mallarmé

La chair est triste, hélas! et j’ai lu tous les livres. [The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.]

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