If I were asked what the most company themes in poetry are, I’d likely answer with two words: love and nature. Poets used to write a lot about love. But love as a poetry theme has suffered a serious blow in the popularity ratings in the last couple of generations. But nature? Poets have likely been speaking and writing about nature since the literary art was invented. Poets are still writing about nature. These days, writing about nature contains far fewer pitfalls than writing about love.
Then I read Fixed Hours: Poems by Kortney Garrison. Many, perhaps most, of the poems use nature. She doesn’t celebrate nature for the sake of nature. Instead, she uses nature as a metaphor, and not for one particular thing, but for many things. And she uses nature in a deliberative, thoughtful, almost prayerful way.
Two years ago, I posteda poem about a visit to the crypt of St. Bride’s Churchin London. It’s known as the Journalists’ Church because of its proximity to Fleet Street. There are no newspapers left on Fleet Street; they all moved to the suburbs decades ago. But the history persists, and so does the church.
That visit inspired a short story, published today in the Autumn 2026 issue of Cultivating. The story is “Brother Lionel,” and it’s a story about forgiveness. It joins articles, poems, and similar contributions by 19 other writers on the general theme of "renewing forgiveness."
St. Bride’s Church is famous for its tiered steeple, the inspiration for wedding cakes worldwide. The crypt below the church has a museum, a short walk of artifacts, and this chapel.
The (unnamed) writer at A London Inheritance had a post this week about taking a walk in London. She calls pat of the “Rocque Ring,” and it forms the boundary of London in 1745. It begins at the Blue Coat School, located on Caxton Lane at the corner of Buckingham Gate, goes past Buckingham Palace, and then moves up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park. Our hotel – the one we’ve stayed at six times since 2013, is a short block from the Blue Coat School. This was “our neighborhood,” close to Victoria, near the Wellington Guards Barracks, and two blocks from the Palace and St. James’s Park. We could, and often did, walk to Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, and even Westminster Abbey. And we could, and often did, run into all the protests that are a daily occurrence in London.
Englishman Henry Oliver, who writes about books, found himself in the Middle South of the United States – Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. And he discovered that there’s nothing boring in America.
Matthew Zapruder is, well, a presence in poetry. He’s a poet. He’s published sixcollections of poetry the most recent being I Love Hearing Your Dreams (2024). His poetry is known for exploring themes of grief, perception, and logic. He published the influential work Why Poetry? He’s written essays and articles and done translations. He’s received awards, honors, and fellowships. He co-founded a publishing house. And he teaches in the MFA and English Department at Saint Mary’s College of California in suburban Sab Francisco.
And now he’s published a memoir, The Story of a Poem. It may be the most unusual memoir I’ve read. No, it’s not written as a long poem, or series of poem. It looks like a standard memoir.
I’ve talked before about my experiences with the art of Anselm Kiefer. I’d seen two of works at the St. Louis Art Museum, and then in 2014 I walked into an entire exhibition at the Royal Academy of London. Over this past winter, the St. Louis Art Museum staged a massive exhibition of his works entitled “Becoming the Sea,” named for a line of poetry from Gregory Corso. One work also cited lines from the poet Paul Celan, and I just posted about Celan last week. Yes, I’m a fan of Kiefer’s art, but I don’t think I could quite articulate why.
Until now. I read a poem in This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed, the new collection by Mischa Willett. The poem is about Kiefer, and it’s about art, writing, and books. And it’s mostly about the act of artistic creation. The poem explained, to me, at least, what it was about Kieffer’s art that I find so profound.
One thing email and texting has done is almost eliminate the old-fashioned letter. And letters were the stuff of biographers and historians. Example: we know a lot about poets like T.S. Eliot because of the letters he wrote. Another example: Robert Frost. Ben Myers, writing for Portico, looks at Frost’s letters and asks,“Did Robert Frost Despair for His Soul?”
In 1825, a hero of the America Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette, retuned to America for a visit. He survived the French Revolution, which didn’t treat aristocrats kindly, because the American Revolution and the role he played made him a national hero in France as well. Fifty years later, he came back, and the return was a triumph.
I read a considerable amount of poetry. I read all kinds of poetry – ancient, modern, Romantic, Victoriam, contemporary, poetry in translation, Japanese haiku. I’ve read The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Aeneid, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and Green Knight, Paradise Lost, Shakespeare’s sonnets. I can invariably find something to like, in whole or in part, of virtually everything I read.
It’s a famous poem, author unknown. It’s called the national poem of France. It’s the story of Charlemagne’s nephew who falls in battle against the invading Saracens at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778. It’s a story of courage, betrayal, and ultimate victory. For centuries, it’s inspired playwrights, writers, poets (contemporary poet Mark Jarman wrote a poem about it), novels, stories, and even a rock song and a video game.
Detective Cameron Ballack is not only back; he’s on a roll. Two mysteries so far this year!
The wheelchair-bound detective is the creation of writer Luke Davis. He’s works with the Greater St. Louis Special Investigative Division. The unit functions as a special task force focused on murder and occasionally general mayhem.
In The Burning Glow, published in June, he helped track down a car bomber. In his recent adventure, An Academy of Murder, Ballack finds himself on farm more familiar ground. A janitor has been found dead at King’s Prep, a private Christian school. It almost looks like suicide, but the forensic investigation shows it was murder.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.
He was born Paul Anschell in 1920, an only child. His life was framed by the place where he grew up and the tumultuous events of the mid-20th century that destroyed his family and everything that was familiar. Yet he survived. Under the name of Paul Celan, he continued continuing to write the poetry he began in his teens, poetry full of the images of life and death.
It’s an engaging, enthralling biography. Arno brings to life a man haunted by tragedy, horrendous events, and loss, and she shows how he folded it all into his poetry.
