Poets and Poems: Bradford Skow and “American Independence in Verse”

Before the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, there was at least some 15 years of growing American disenchantment with Britain. The roots of the American Revolution lie in the French and Indian War (1756-1763), but it’s often said that the American Declaration of Independence has its roots in the Magna Carta.  

Fortunately, the historical landscape is littered with documentation of what was happening in the American colonies: statements, declarations, letters, newspaper reports, speeches, and more. The 15 years before the Declaration was a ferment of ideas, debates, and arguments that grew with every new event, every new action by the British government.

 

What is striking about all this is what a literate ferment it was. Menand women argued literately on both sides of the governance and independence question. You can read only some of these documents before you realize how articulate and passionate they are.

 

And poetic.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

4^th Sunday of Each Month – poem by J.A. Gilbert at Frivolous Quill.

 

New Video! – Brookhaven | Civil War Novel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Seeing Slant in the Company of Others – Eric Malczewski at Front Porch Republic.

 

“The Men That Don’t Fit In,” poem by Robert Service – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Crème Brulee -- poem by Toby Alfier at Every Day Poems.

“Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible” by Shelly Eshkoli

If I were asked to name women in the Bible, my answer would come out rather perfunctory. Other than Eve, my answer would gravitate to the New Testament. Mary. Mary Magdalene. Martha. The woman at the well. Priscilla, friend of Paul. The woman who touched Jesus’s robe. All people from the New Testament. 

I have to think harder about the Old Testament. Then they surface. Sarah. Pharoah’s daughter. Rachel and Leah. Rebecca. There are more. They all have stories, some short and some longer. But there are also women who appear and then almost vanish.

 

Writer Shelly Eshkoli aims to correct that with Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible. She features 10 women from the Old Testament, some named and some nameless, who appear in the accounts and then almost vanish, or as Eshkoli might say, almost erased.

 

Shelly Eshkoli

The 10 women are Zipporah, the wife of Moses; the daughter of Jephthah in the Book of Judges; Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah; Lot’s wife; Jael, the woman known for a mallet and nail; Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah; Athaliah, the murderous daughter of Jezebel; Esther, the queen of Persia who saved the people of Israel; the Queen of Sheba; and the witch of Endor, consulted by Saul and supposedly summoning the ghost of the prophet Samuel.

 

Eshkoli begins each account with a fictional “scroll,” allowing each woman to tell her story in her own words. Then a solid, well-researched account follows. Eshkoli sifts through history, archaeology. Linguistics, and other sources to draw a picture of each woman and the times in which she lived. What emerges is a nuanced, thoughtful discussion which brings depth to the story of each woman.

 

The author is a well-known and highly regard tour guide and group leader in Jerusalem and the Biblical lands of Israel. She holds an M.A. degree in Biblical Studies and is also a lecturer and teacher, bringing in-depth knowledge of the life and culture of the ancient Near East to her work.

 

Unveiled is an engaging look at 10 women of the Bible we know little about. Eshkoli brings them alive on the page, and we can see the vital role they played in the Bible story.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

America at 250: Teaching with Honesty and Gratitude – Janie Cheaney at Redeemed Reader.

 

The Sad Death of Tabloid English – Christopher Gage at Oxford Sour.

 

The Siege of Basing House – A London Inheritance.

 

Spring Blossoms and Untimely Reflections – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Prince Andrei and War and Peace.

Patience

After James 5:7-12 

Patience is a trial,

but it is also to what

you are called, so

be patient, for

the Lord will come.

Follow the farmer,

who knows his fields

and waits for

the harvest to come.

The coming of the lord

is soon; the coming

of the Lord is at hand.

That is what you’re

awaiting, and patience

will be rewarded, just

as the farmer is rewarded

with his harvest.

 

Photograph by Free Walking Tour Salzburg via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Lost Art of a Wandering Mind – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

‘Religious Affections’: Textbook of the American Soul – Obbie Tyler Todd at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads – June 27, 2026

If there is one national flag recognized the world over today, it’s the flag of the United States. At one time, it was Britain’s Union Jack. Guy Iynn at History tells the story of these two flags and where they came from. Stewart McLaurin at USA Today writes the American flag helped the country evolve and unite. 

For the past few weeks, you can’t open any social media platform without seeing Europeans visiting for the World Cup and discovering the America they never knew existed. The reports became so widespread that even the mainstream media began to notice. But these visitors also did something else – they reminded us of the great country Americans themselves forgot existed.

 

Following Keir Starmer’s resignation Monday, Britain will now have its seventh prime minister in a decade. That decade of instability started officially when Britain voted to leave the European Union in the vote known as Brexit. Douglas Murray argues in The Free Press that Britain’s leaders forgot how to lead. Arthur Reynolds at The Critic Magazine says the Civil Service was the ruin of Starmer. And writer Fred de Frossard looks at the decade and explains why Brexit was right. 

 

It had grown and lasted for at least 800 years. Some said it was even older, 1,000 or even 1,500 years. But it is no more. The Major Oak has died. And some see the death as symbolizing far more than an old, dead tree.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Forgotten Scot Behind the Declaration of Independence – Samuel Gregg at The Coolidge Review.

 

The Essential Paintings of Our Nation – Judith Dobrzynski at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

The Tobacco Raid of 1779 – Marc Drolet at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Founding Fathers had a real revolution to overcome before they could win the war – J.H. Cook at Fox News.

 

New York’s Underdogs Prepare to Fight – Jonathan Horn t The Free Press.

 

Scots in the Revolution & the British Southern Pivot – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

When the Colonists Fasted for Independence – Sarah Gleim at History.

 

Faith

 

Loaves, Fish, and Un-Self-Conscious Little Boys – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Kingdom of Trees – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

“O Abany”: Novelist William Kennedy on His Great Cycle of the City – Library of America (video).

 

Luxury Muzhik – Adam Thirlwell at London Review of Books reviews Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky.

 

50 Years of Creative Destruction in the Book World – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Winged Words: Reading & Discussing Great Books – Peter Kalkavage at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poetry

 

“Life and Love: A Song,” poem by John Wilmor, Earl of Rochester – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“An Essay on Man,” poem by Alexander Pope (excerpt) – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Thank You Jesus for the Blood – Charity Gayle

 Painting: The Morning Chapter, oil on canvas by Charles Spencelayh (1865-1958).

Watch it, rich man!

After James 4:10-5:6 

A fundamental question:

what do you do with

your wealth? What do

you do with all the Lord

has blessed you with?

Riches for the sake

of riches is chasing

after the wind. You

blink your eyes, and

your riches have rotted,

your clothes become rags,

your stocks have crashed,

your banks have closed,

your comfortable life

of indulgence have ended.

You’ve condemned and

defrauded the righteous

person. It is time for you

to weep and howl for

the miseries coming

upon you.

 

Photograph by Jingming Pan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Treasures of TANAKH Hebrew: Hineni,” poem by Brian Volck – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

A Lot of Christian Tech Criticism is Missing Three Important Things – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Icthus – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” hymn by Reginald Heber – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

A pair of sonnets for St. John the Baptist – Malcolm Guite.

 

A Puddle of Pure Joy – Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: David Livewell and “Pass and Stow”

It was the title that attracted me to David Livewell’s new poetry collection, Pass and Stow: Poems. It sounded like something related to transportation or hauling freight. It turned out to be people’s last names. 

As Livewell explains, John Pass and John Stow worked in the foundry in Philadelphia that recast the Liberty Bell in 1753. The foundry was in the same neighborhood where Livewell grew up in the 1970s. In his words, the two men “serve as reminders about the city’s layered past and what outward and inward repair can achieve.”

 

In the collection, Livewell applies the idea of layered past and repair to tell a story through poetry. And he is a grand storyteller. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

10 Things Poets & Writers Can Do in the Small Moments – TS Poetry at The Write to Poetry.

 

“The Fairies,” poem by William Allingham – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“A tailor-bird’s song of triumph,” from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“Redcar Collector,” a short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free to download today at Amazon.com. 

Some Wednesday Readings - June 24, 2026

Great Americans: ‘We’re Going to Take Back the Airplane’ – Colleen Shogan at The Free Press. 

There Are More than Five POVs – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Murder in disguise – Carl Trueman at World Magazine.

 

“The Moonlight,” poem by Yvor Winters – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Move Over, Mario Puzo – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Charlie Jones, Photographer – Spitalfields Life.

 

A.R. Ammons and arts patronage – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The Hardest Part of Fatherhood – Chris Martin at FYI.

 

Writers and Their Houses – Jay Parini.

 

Photograph: poet and writer A.R. Ammons (1926-2001). 

Sara Barkat Takes Us into “Otherside”

Until the late 1970s, my reading of science fiction was limited to the stories and novels of Ray Bradbury, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, and The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. I didn’t have any inherent bias against science fiction; it was more my reading interests were in other directions. 

For some reason, I picked up a paperback edition of Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg. Then I went to the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov (published in the 1950s, it may explain American politics of the last decade). Then the novels of Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. And Arthur C. Clarke, whose Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s Endremain among my favorite books. But as much as I loved the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, even then I knew how much it was changing science fiction. Fantasy was taking over. 

 

Years passed. Reading interests changed. And then the old memories stirred when I read The Shivering Ground by Sara Barkat. The wonderful graphic version she did of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, was another reminder, even though it’s usually called a horror story. And now she has a new novel, Otherside, which is about as close as you can get to mainstream science fiction as you can.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

For the Road to Santiago – poem by David Whyte.

 

The Wordless Rose: Ruchard Wilbur’s ‘Advice to a Prophet’ – Alexander Fayne.

 

Veshicular – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Poetry in Prose – Where Love is Born – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Lives upon Lives – poem by Baruch November at Evey Day Poems.

 

“Requiem,” poem by Robert Louis Stevenson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Some Monday Readings - June 22, 2026

If the First Apocalypse Doesn’t Get You, the Second One Will – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on the novels of R.C. Sherriff. 

On the third day: On the religious illiteracy of college students – The New Criterion.

 

Robert Besley, the Clarendon Typeface, and the Longbow – A London Inheritance.

 

McDonald’s is bringing back fried apple pie for America’s 250^th birthday – Colleen Cabili at Quartz.

 

The Surprising Ways Fatherhood Changes Men – Sarah Campisi Hallier at The Epoch Times.

 

Solstice Stories – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

When Writers Don’t Respond – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

Photograph: The writer R.C. Sherriff (1896-1975).

Watch your plans!

After James 4:10-5:6 

We believe we’re

in control; we act

as if we control

our lives and

everything that

happens. Watch 

your plans! You

don’t know what

tomorrow brings.

You are a mist,

present for a short

time, and then

you vanish. Make 

your plans in

the Lord’s will,

if God allows it.

He may allow it,

and he may not.

Embrace humility;

embrace direction

from the one,

the only one, truly

in control.

 

Photograph by Alvaro Reyes via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Is My Pain God’s Punishment? – Vaneetha Rendall Risner at Desiring God.

 

What We Learned from Dad – the team at Story Warren.

 

A Prayer for Father’s Day – Yuri Bezmenov at How to Subvert Subversion.

Saturday Good Reads - June 20, 2026

Tomorrow is Fathers Day. It’s a younger observance than Mothers Day, and it started in 1910 in Spokane, Washington. And it started because a daughter was determined that fathers would not be forgotten. 

Psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles died June 4 at age 97. He also taught literature at Harvard and wrote more than 60 books. His Pulitzer Prize work was about race, and he went to New Orleans with a notebook and tape recording to understand how federally mandated school integration had affected the children themselves. Kenneth Woodward at Commonweal has a remembrance of Coles and his writing.

 

Way back in my junior year of high school, I did a massive research paper for my American Literature class on three Realist writers – Jack London, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather. I had to read at least two works by each author, and for Cather I chose two of her later works – Death Comes for the Archbishop and Shadows on the Rock (we’d already read My Antonia and O Pioneers in class, and the research paper had to be on unread works). I liked them both, but I knew that critics had disliked Shadows on the Rock; it was apparently too religious. Maria Grace Birzer Papez at The Imaginative Conservative considers the book and writes that the critics at the time missed the point entirely.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

America at 250: The Greatest Compounding Machine in History – Meg Faber at Real Clear History.

 

John Hancock and the Battle for Newport – Kely Holt at Just Enough History.

 

America’s Thomas Jefferson Problem – Rick Lowry at The Coolidge Review.

 

The Plot Against Washington – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

Anatomy of a Republic – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Gaspee Affair (1772): When Rhode Island Colonists Burned a British Warship – Anglotopia.

 

George Washington and the Battle for America’s Frontier – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Faith

 

Dear Dementia – Katie Laitkep.

 

Loaves, Fish, and Un-Self-Conscious Little Boys – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Great Americans: The Wizard Who Created Oz – Ann Bauer at The Free Press. 

 

Candance Millard and the Revival of History as Literature – Conor Broll at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Drastic Unalikes: Flannery O’Connor and Her Mother – Ralph Wood at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Poetry

 

You’re a Popsicle – Seth Lewis.

 

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Keats’s Melancholy Ode – Adam Roberts at Ships on Fire, Off the Shoulder of Orion.

 

“Poppies on the Wheat,” poem by Helen Hunt Jackson and “When I Have Fears,” poem by John Keats – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

News Media

 

10 Insights from the Reuter’s Institute Digital News Report 2026 – Chris Martin at FYI.

 

Brookhaven Trailer – TS Poetry Press

 Painting: Storytime, oil on canvas (1897) by Carlton Alfred Smith (1853-1946).

Watch your tongue!

After James 4:10-5:6 

Watch your tongue;

don’t speak evil

against your brother.

If you do, you

become a judge,

not of the behavior,

but a judge of the law,

a judge against 

the law. That means

you become one

who judges, not

one who obeys the law,

one who lives the law.

You try to turn

yourself into the one,

the only one, who

can truly judge,

the one who saves.

Sometimes, all times,

Keep your tongue

in your mouth, and

keep your mouth closed.

 

Photograph: The Day of Judgment by William Blake; Art Institute of Chicago via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

From “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

When Innovation Isn’t the Answer – Darryl Dash at Dashhouse.

 

What Do You When You Fail? – Jeffrey Stivason at Gentle Reformation.

 

“In the Sweet By-and-By,” hymn by Sanford Fillmore Bennett – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

A Trailer for "Brookhaven"

I was surprised today - the nice, wonderful kind of surprise. TS Poetry Press, the publisher of my historical novel "Brookhaven," created a trailer for the novel. It is (no bias here, of course) spot on. It describes the novel perfectly and communicates the "feel" that I intended with the novel. You can see it here:

“The Boundless Deep”: Richard Holmes on the Young Tennyson

It’s not exactly a confession, but I have the textbook I used for English in my senior year of high school, England in Literature. It’s not the one I actually used, but a copy I found at a used book fair. And I’ve also held on to the texts from my two courses in English Literature in college – the Norton Anthology of English Literature, published in 1962 and revised in 1968. I’d prefer not to think about how many editions have occurred since then (those recent is 2024). 

I pulled both texts from the shelf recently to see what poems were included from Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). I’ve been reading The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes. Holmes cites Tennyson poems I’d never heard of, and I wondered how many of them had been included in those textbooks.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Foxy noses – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“The Frog,” poem by Hillaire Belloc – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Close and Slow: ‘The Thought Fox’ by Ted Hughes – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Fifty – poem by David Whyte.

 

“To Rosamounde,” poem by Geoffrey Chaucer – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“The Declaration of Independence” by Bradley Birzer

I was on a multi-day business trip to Washington, D.C. I had a free afternoon, so I walked from the hotel to the National Gallery on the Mall. And then, for reason or reasons unknown, I walked across the street to the National Archives. And there it was – the original Declaration of Independence. 

 

Drafted mostly if not entirely by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is to America what the Magna Carta is to England. The statement of beliefs. The citation of grievances against an unjust ruler (also an English king, no less). The signatures.  

As Bradley Birzer points out in The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty, the Declaration is all these things. And it is more. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Prudence vs. Fanaticism: On the American & French Revolutions – Russell Kirk at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The art of translation: On Les Fleurs du mal, by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Richard Howard – David Paul at The New Criterion.

 

Short Story, Deep Treasures: Biblical Allusion in “Gift of the Magi” – John Savoie at Literary Matters.

Poets and Poems: Fanny Howe and "This Poor Book"

Fanny Howe (1940-2025) was the author of some 13 poetry collections, five novels, and numerous short stories and essays. Her collection Second Childhood: Poems (2014) was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her Selected Poems received the 2001 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and she received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2009.  

Shortly before her death in 2025, Howe completed another manuscript, This Poor Book: A Poem. It is and isn’t a poem. It is and isn’t a poetry collection. It is and isn’t a memoir, an autobiography, a poetic essay. It is one of the most unusual works I’ve read.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Bringing Characters to Life – 1 – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death,” poem by William Butler Yeats – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.