Poets and Poems: Brett Foster and "Extravagant Rescues"

Brett Foster (1973-2015) was a professor of English at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago. He was a Renaissance scholar, anthology editor, and a poet. He had been Wheaton’s Poet in Residence since 2005. He was known for his work on William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Renaissance Rome. He had been a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. 

He received his B.A. degrees in English and journalism from the University of Missouri, where he met his wife. And the man was born in Kansas. You have to be a native of Missouri or Kansas to know just how contrary it is for a Kansan to attend a college in Missouri, and vice versa. The enmity is a legacy of the pre-Civil War “bleeding Kansas” battles over slavey. He did receive his masters in English from Boston University and his Ph.D. from Yale.

 

At the time of his death, he had published one full poetry collection, The Garbage Eater (2011) and a chapbook, Fall Run Road (2011). He was working on a new collection, Extravagant Rescues, at the time of his death. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings 

 

Joy of My Youth – poem by Paul Mariani at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“Winter Snow,” poem by Mark van Doren – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern. 

 

“Christmas,” poem by George Herbert – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“Frost,” poem by Hannah Flagg Gould – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Five Poems in Honor of Thomas McGrath – Jared Carter at New Verse Review.

Funeral, 1895: A Brookhaven Poem

She nestles there, suffering,

folded into herself,

until she is not. Helpless,

I watch her, disappearing

a little each day, and then

in the deafening silence

I can hear someone 

screaming in the light.

 

Our daughters, so much

like her, guide me through

the motions – arrangements,

the pastor, the funeral home,

the service, the burial, words

read to the sound of dirt

striking wood, the single rose

someone left soon covered.

 

The rose is white

in the afternoon light.

 

At the house, after, the smell

of coffee and iced cakes, 

church ladies hovering 

in long skirts and starched

white collared blouses, 

pouring into cups and 

cutting slices as muted sounds

of voices pass around me.

Our daughters anchor me 

in line, one on each side,

smiling to the people

in soft, nodding gratitude.

Through the windows I see

the afternoon light.

 

People leave. Our daughters

insist I rest, laying me

in our bed, the place where

she left me. The door closes; I

hear their steps on the stairs.

I don’t sleep; I turn on my side

and reach to touch what

is now emptiness suffused 

with light.

 

It is morning, early, dark still.

I make my way to the kitchen

and then the street, its houses 

posing as tombstones. 

I walk in the dark to the woods,

our woods, the place we

remembered as the afterword

of war. I walk miles perhaps, but

by time the light opens, 

I am buried deep in the green 

and the smell of dense pine,

embracing the solitude 

of separation.

 

We were bonded forever

by the road after the war,

the road we traveled

together, two children 

grown too old too soon,

traveling as one in the light.

No one knew us like

we knew each other.

No one ever could,

except the light.

 

Years later, when I was old,

I would hear that grief

is a thing with feathers. 

I knew that was wrong.

I would know grief, yes,

but only as a thing with tethers,

tethers bathed in light.

 

Photograph by Dewang Gupta via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Origin Story of Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Why Lenin Won – Gaul Saul Morson at Law & Liberty.

Paul Krause Follows in Dante's Footsteps

The world’s great poets not only wrote poetry still read and studied today, but they also helped shape the culture of their countries and indeed what we call Western civilization. Consider the greats of Greece and Rome – Homer, Virgil, Ovid and others. The great poets of English include Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. Germany has its Goethe. Russia has Pushkin. And Italy has Dante. 

Many others belong to the category of “great poets,” of course, but as poet and author Paul Krause points out in his Dante’s Footsteps: Poems and Reflections of Poetry, it was poets and their works of poetry who led the way in language, culture, and ways of thinking and expression. 

 

One brief example cited by Krause: The word agape is well known in historic Christianity. It is the highest form of love. It is love that is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. The word come from the Greek, and it was Homer who first used it and perhaps invented it.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

This Craft of Verse – Alexander Fayne.

 

Putting the Poetry Back into Homer – James Sale at The Epoch Times.

 

“Autumn,” poem by David Baird – Malcolm Guite.

 

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” (excerpt), poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Every Day Poems.

 

Horses Moving on the Snow – poem by David Whyte.

 

“Nativity,” poem by John Donne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“The Swansea Marina Murders” by Stephen Puleston

Detective Inspector Caren Waits of the West Wales Police Service and her team are called to the marina in Swansea. The body of a young woman has been found floating in the marina docking area; the post-mortem will show she’d been brutally strangled. Her identity is quickly determined: a university student who also worked at a marina pub. The site of her murder takes a bit longer to discover, and the crime scene investigators find it. 

The victim shared a flat with three other students, and everything seemed normal on the surface. That is, until the investigators find five thousand pounds in cash stowed in her room, a connection to a former boyfriend who tended to the violent, and an affair with one of her professors who doesn’t seem to be as forthcoming as he should about his own background. Complicating the case is that the victim’s phone is missing and presumably tossed into the marina waters.

 

Then a second murder happens; a friend of the first victim is found with her head bashed by a winch from a yacht. In this case, the victim’s small rooms are found ransacked; someone was looking for something and apparently didn’t find it. Waits and her team discover that there’s a possible connection to a spate of burglaries aboard marina boats and residences; someone had very good information when yacht owners would be sailing and away from home, or out of town and away from their boats.

 

Stephen Puleston

The Swansea Marina Murders is the third in the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It is a classic police procedural story, accented by Waits having to deal with the settling of the estate of her dead husband, the discovery that he had another relationship and child, and trying to raise her own young son with an almost impossible work schedule (parent to the rescue!). 

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Puleston has been setting the keyboard keys afire. This third DI Caren Waits novel is the third published in 2025, and a fourth one was recently issued. A fifth one is set to be published next year. Like its two predecessors, The Swansea Marina Murders is very methodically told; the focus is on police procedure. All three have been entertaining reads, and I’m looking forward to reading the fourth, The Pembroke Castle Murders.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

When a House Is Not a Home – Matthew Walther at Commonplace.

 

Why we love Jane Austen more than ever after 250 years – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Amahl and the Night Visitors”: The Classic Christmas Opera – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

Protected

After 2 Samuel 9:1-13 

Protected by his friend,

saved to avert his murder

at the hands of the king,

he shares a covenant,

house to house, a love

again demonstrated 

by the acknowledgement

of what had to happen.

The relationship was sealed

in promise and love, and

he showed that love and

he showed that faithfulness,

by protecting the son

of his friend, and more so,

by blessing the son

of his friend.

 

Photograph by Jed Owen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Into the Unknown – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

Is Joy in Jess a Christian Obligation? – John Piper at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads - Dec. 13, 2025

The Nicene Creed is 1,700 years old this week. Dennis Sansom at Mere Orthodoxy explains how it came to be created, and why it’s still important. 

A local note: St. Louis Patina is a site dedicated to preserving local architecture – and sometimes preserving the memory of it. This week, the posts included Grace Episcopal Church in our suburb of Kirkwood, which a few local wags refer to as “St. Roofus.” It’s a large A-frame structure, built in 1961 when the congregation moved a few blocks east. The original building sits directly across the street from the Kirkwood Farmers Market.

 

In 2017, we visited Two Temple Place in London, built in the late 19^th century by William Waldorf Astor, an American who much preferred to live in London. It was open during September’s London Open House Festival, and it was an incredible place to visit. Recently, the Gentle Author at Spitalfields Life took a tour, and it’s decorated for Christmas. (If you visit London in September, you should take advantage of Open House, during which many of the city’s normally closed architectural treasures are open for tours.)

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Continental Army’s Medical Crisis: Benjamin Rush’s Whistleblowing in 1778 – Haley Fuller at Military.com.

 

Facing Washington’s Crossing: The Hessians and the Battle of Trenton by Steven Bier – review by Sam Short at the Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Battle of Great Bridge — Mark Maloy at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Lafayette and the Journey to Yorktown – Shaun Cero at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Was the Battle of Point Pleasant the First Battle of the American Revolution? – Evan Portman at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The 50 Years That Made America – Max Edling at History Today.

 

Videau’s Bridge: An American Disaster After Yorktown – Joshua Wheeler at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Faith

 

Learning by Experience – Seth Lewis.

 

My Top 10 Theology Stories of 2025 – Collin Hansen at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Loving Aging Parents Well – John Piper at Desiring God.

 

American Stuff

 

Freedom to be Bound: Religious Liberty from Moses to Madison – Ian Speir at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

British Stuff

 

Britain is facing a crisis of state legitimacy – Chris Bayliss at The Critic Magazine.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Miraculous Love: "Gifts of the Magi” – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Herakles’ 6^th Labor: Clear Away the Mind’s Chaos – James Sale at The Epoch Times.

 

Life and Culture

 

Revenge of the Climate Realists – Peter Savodnik at The Free Press.

 

Pro-Life Pregnancy Center Case: Even the ACLU Calls NJ Actions ‘Censorship by Intimidation’ – Lorie Johnson at Christian Broadcasting Network.

 

Russell Kirk’s Challenge to Liberalism, 1950-1960 – Bradley Birzer. 

 

Maria Corina Machado: The Nobel Speech I Couldn’t Give in Person – via The Free Press.

 

Art

 

The New Faces of Anselm Kiefer’s Art – Melissa Venator at the St. Louis Art Museum.

 

Poetry

 

“In Drear-Nighted December,” poem by John Keats and “In Memoriam XXVIII,” poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson– Malcolm Guite.

 

Seamus Heaney: a jobber among shadows – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“The Need of Being Versed in Country Things,” poem by Robert Frost – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Ascensus Christi: A Piano Rhapsody – Paul Cardall 

 Painting: Self-Portrait, oil on canvas by Émile Friant (1863-1932).

A kindness shown

After 2 Samuel 9:1-13 

A kindness shown,

a steadfast love displayed,

to the son of his friend

slain in battle,

the grandson of the man

who tried to kill him,

a kindness shown

because it was time 

to forgive.

 

And more than kindness,

an honor, a tribute

to the friend he loved,

one soul in two bodies,

severed. Some might

have eliminated all and

any potential rivals;

instead, he showed

kindness, she showed

mercy, he showed

blessing.

 

Photograph by Masjid Pogung Dalangan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“A Message for the New Baby,” poem by Luci Shaw – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Four Advent Villanelles by Anna Friedrich – The Rabbit Room.

 

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” – Anthony Esolen at Word and Song.

 

The Empty Chair at Christmas – Daniel Darling at One Little Word.

 

“On Change of Weather,” poem by Francis Quarles – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.