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.
One of the most moving accounts I read this week was in Front Porch Republic. A writer named Jessica Birke looked at the family home where she grew up, the one that will likely be sold after her parents ae no longer there, and wonders what will happen to the place. She had me at the first line: “The land is mostly quiet now.”
Yesterday was the anniversary of a vicious attack on the Jewish community on Manchester, England. We’ve had attacks here in the United States, but we haven’t been seeing the rise of anti-Semitism that Britain seems to be experiencing. Perhaps it’s because we’re a larger country. But you just don’t expect to see an attack on a synagogue in the Britain you’ve experienced many times and the Britain of your imagination. But it’s there, and it’s getting worse. Robert Largan at The Critic Magazine looks back in anger at what happened and what it means.
