Outraged by his words, furious he would suggest that others were worthy of love, they resorted to violence, dragging him out of town, this man they knew, the carpenter’s son, the man whom they believed had blasphemed because he suggested others had gained God’s favor. They drove him to the hilltop, prepared to cast him down, prepared to kill, but he simply moved through their midst, away from the cliff, away from the hilltop, and left.
Painting: The Brow of the Hill Near Nazareth, oil on canvas by James Tissot (1836-1902), Brooklyn Museum.
I’ve read Paul Kingsnorth for years, first his novels, then his poems, and then his essays. The writer who began as something of a radical environmentalist who discovered faith, explored Ireland’s holy wells and met wild saints, became a popular speaker, and, in a way, anticipated the promise and peril of artificial intelligence and the rise of what he calls “the machine.” It would be an oversimplification to call him England’s (or Ireland’s, since he lives there now) answer to Wendell Berry. But there would also be some truth to that oversimplification.
Bery often wrote and spoke about industrial agriculture and the death f rural communities. Those themes are also part of Kingsnorth’s “machine,” but he goes further. He includes technology in general, and particularly digital technology, global economic systems, and the aspects of modern life he sees as soul-crushing.
Poet and writer Rachel Hicks has lived in some unusual places. She was born in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains, and she’s lived in India, Pakistan, Jordan, the Republic of Congo, Hong Kong, China, and the United States. Her nomadic background comes into full play with her debut poetry collection, Accumulated Lessons in Displacement.
When I started reading, I expected to see those international experiences reflected in the poems. And they’re there. What I did not expect was the find so many poems of a haunting beauty, that leaves you with a sense of awe. But that’s what I found.
There has been an abundance of posts and articles lately about the death of reading, the end of the traditional book, the decline in book sales, and so one. Everyone seems ready to pronounce the death of books as we know them. Not so fast, says Daniel Darling at One Little Word. He makes the case for why paper books will endure.
In the category of “I am not making this up,” Nellie Bowles at The Free Press cited a new report by the United Nations Women organization, “Facts and figures: Women, peace and security.” The big concern: nearly one in four civilian deaths associated with war and violent conflicts around the world are women and girls. The organization also highlighted the statistic with a dramatic graphic on X, formerly known as Twitter. The report does acknowledge, in an offhanded kind of way, that three in four civilian deaths in war and violent conflict are men and boys, but I suppose we need to focus on what’s important.
