Poets and Poems: Beth Copeland and “I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart”

When I was a child, my parents had a favorite vacation place – the mountains. When you’re a flatlander or an “indented” flatlander in a subsidence-prone city like New Orleans, the mountains seem almost like a catapult to the heavens. The focus was the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

We stayed in places like Gatlinburg, Tennessee, before it was discovered; Luray, Virginia, with its caverns; and Cherokee, North Carolina, which to my childhood wonder, had real Native Americans (still called “Indians” in the 1960s). One of my most vivid memories is the family hiking up a mountain in Virginia to an overlook point, with the Shenandoah Valley laid out below.

 

The mountains, those unmovable heights of rock, dirt, and trees, brought awe, wonder, and a sense of peace. Occasionally, the snaky roads through them brought bears and cubs. (Everyone pulled over the see the cubs; few stopped for the full-grown bears.)

 

For poet Beth Copeland, the mountains brought peace and something else – healing. A relationship had ended, and she moved to the mountains for solace.  It was perhaps inevitable that she would write about it, and I Ask the Mountain to Heal My Heart: Poems is the result. And what a beautiful result it is. When I began reading, I didn’t expect to find some of my own story, but that’s what happened.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Wandering thoughts: When my legs stopped working, my mind carried on – Sean Walsh at The Critic Magazine.

 

A Place to Stand: On Reading Poetry – Rachel Welcher at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

“Summer Morn in New Hampshire,” poem by Claude McKay – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Canto XXX of Dante’s Paradise – translation by Stephen Binns at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Little we see in nature – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street on Dwell by Simon Armitage.

 

"Mosby's Rangers" by James Joseph Williamson

In my novel Brookhaven, I have the 13-year-old Sam McClure sent to the Confederate army in the East. His father had fought with Robert E. Lee in the Mexican American War, and Lee hoped that the young Sam had learned some of his father’s espionage and survival skills. The young man is assigned to a unit called Colby’s Rangers, and after a few weeks of basic training is sent with others to prepare for Lee’s invasion of the North, which culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg.  

The model for Colby’s Rangers in the novel is an actual unit called Mosby’s Rangers. It was less involved in espionage and more involved in disruptions of federal lines, camps, and supply lines. When General Jeb Stuart “rode around” the Union army of George McClellan in 1862, it was Mosby’s Rangers leading the cavalry.

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

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Humanizing the Humanist: Irving Babbitt – Bradley Birzer.

 

When Culture Comes Full Circle – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Gettysburg’s Test of Courage – Francis Sempa at Modern Age.

 

Unconditional: Frank Blair’s Fight for Missouri – Devan Sommerville at Emerging Civil War.

 

A.E. Stallings: the Parthenon Marbles, Poets, and Artists

My wife thought I was being a bit excessive. On a trip to England in 2024, I was insistent that we see the Parthenon Marbles, aka the Elgin Marbles, at the British Museum. We had seen them several times before, but, in 2023, the room housing them was inexplicably closed (no explanation given, just “closed”), as debate over their future was intensifying.

The Greeks want the marbles back; British traditionalists want them to stay. British law requires the marbles (and other artifacts) to remain in Britain, although exceptions can be made. 

 

In 2024, the exhibition room was open. It’s a large room, a fitting space for these marvelous sculptures. We spent a good hour there, walking among the marbles, reading the information cards, and wondering what they must have looked like on the Parthenon itself as a frieze, and as a painted frieze. We may admire the artistry of the marble-white sculptures, but the ancient Greeks like theirs painted and colorful. 

 

American poet A.E. Stallings undertook a project during the COVID lockdown. She began to research the Parthenon Marbles and the role that poets and artists have had in framing the debate about ownership and possession. That research became Frieze Frame: How Poets, Painters, and their Friends Framed the Debate Around Elgin and the Marbles of the Parthenon. (I rather like her title finesses the differing approaches to the sculptures’ name – and thus ownership.) 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

The Memory of a Garden – Andrew Menkis at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

“Prologue in Heaven” from Faust by Goethe – translation by Josh Olson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Identity – poem by Monica Silva at Every Day Poems.

 

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, poem by William Shakespeare – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“Cassandra’s Shadow: Stories” by M. Brosh

As I read Cassandra’s Shadow: Stories by M. Brosh, I had to keep checking to make sure I was reading fiction. After seeing about such recent and real-life reports like exploding pagers and drone factories secretly smuggled into Iran, Brosh’s stories seemed like they were thinly disguised versions of actual events. 

Fiction they are. But they are also based in fact, true events on how the Israeli secret service Mossad operates.

 

The 33 stories are set in a variety of locations – Jerusalem, Vienna, Paris, Syria, an airplane flight from Istanbul to Beijing, and more. Some 23 of the stories are actually a connected narrative, resembling a novella rather than a set of stories. But all of them describe situations that are entirely believable and likely happened. 

 

Operatives for the Organization, which sounds like a nickname for Mossad, undertake a variety of operations. But not all of them are directly involved. The main narrative, in fact, begins with an analyst noticing something odd – a train wreck in North Korea that resulted in a significant explosion and the deaths of people who had Syrian names. What is eventually discovered is that Syria has been using North Korean scientists to build a nuclear weapon on Syrian soil. The questions become what to do about it, and how to do it. And it’s a riveting account.

 

M. Brosh

The stories continue. An assassination in Damascus. An Iranian ship bringing arms to Hamas in Gaza. The targeting of a nuclear specialist at Tehran University. And more. Each story is told in almost understated way; this is, after all, what these men and women do on a daily basis for their work. The amount of planning and detail work is often staggering, but then I reminded myself, of how much planning and detail work must have gone into the exploding pagers and walkie-talkie devices across Lebanon in September of 2024.

 

The author includes an afterword about Europe and the fight against terrorism, describing how terrorists exploit the very foundations of European democracy.

 

Brosh lives on a kibbutz in central Israel. This is his first publication, and it is startling and sobering. Yes, you’re reading short stories, but you know it is fiction grounded in fact. And you realize what a dangerous place this world has become.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The Cultural Contradictions of Conservatism – Aaron Renn at Compact Magazine.

 

27 Notes on Growing Old(er) – Ian Leslie at The Ruffian.

 

Murders for July – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

Frances Wilson: T.S. Eliot is stealing my baked beans – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The War on Cliché – Christopher Gage at Oxford Sour. 

A man born blind

After John 9

A choice of answers

is offered as questions

to explain why a man

was born blind – did

he sin or did his parents?

He rejects both, explaining

it is no one's fault; it’s

not a question of blame

or fault. Hardship or

suffering isn’t a punishment;

that’s not how it works.

Endurance and healing and 

relief become the purpose

for which they’re intended:

to display the power of God.

 

Photograph by CDC via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

“America the Beautiful,” by Katherine Lee Bates and Samuel Ward – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Friendship’s Faithful Wounds – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

Saturday Good Reads - July 5, 2025

You read about the American Revolution, and it’s usually connected to something about the military – Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Yorktown. But it wasn’t all about battles. One of the seeds leading to the revolution was the Peter Zenger trial, which had to do with the freedom of the press. Then there were artists promoting the American rebels’ cause – in Britain of all places. And Robert Morris figured out what was needed to transfer the weaponry Gen. Washington needed to undertake the Yorktown campaign. Speaking of Washington, this past week was the 250^th anniversary of his taking command of the Continental Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

In 1837, a large group gathered to commemorate the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution. And Ralph Waldo Emerson read a poem that contained one of the most famous lines in American history and poetry.

 

By the way, not everyone living in America liked the Declaration of Independence. Tories and Loyalists objected, and two of them actually penned and published a response. Back in England, in the nave of Westminster Abbey, you can find a memorial to Major John Andre, ordered by General Washington to be executed for spying; the memorial commends his zeal for his country. We forget that for those who signed the Declaration of Independence, they were risking everything, including execution for treason. (I discovered, courtesy of Family Search, that I am related to one of the signers, Robert Treat Paine; he’s a second cousin seven times removed.)

 

A couple of contrarian views about poetry surfaced this week. Steve Knepper at New Verse Review explained why he’s against publishing the “selected poems” of poets, at least somewhat against. And former English teacher Susan Spear took issue with how poetry is taught in schools, focusing on “meaning” rather than “versecraft.”

 

More Good Reads

 

American Stuff

 

American Regeneration – Bari Weiss at The Free Press.

 

What to expect for the big 2-5-0 – Chloe Veltman at National Public Radio.

 

I’m Finally Hanging My American Flag – Larissa Phillips at The Free Press.

 

Why I’m a Patriot – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Many Declarations of Independence – Ben Franklin’s World.

 

A Prayer from Africa for America – Tim Cantrell at The Cripplegate.

 

Music

 

George Frederic Handel: A Belated Appreciation – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poetry

 

“Home Thoughts, From Abroad,” poem by Robert Browning – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Thank God for ‘Doubting’ Thomas! – Malcolm Guite.

 

“Tichborne’s Elegy,” poem by Chidiock Tichborne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Monseigneur Bienvenu’s Lesser-Known Meeting – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Do You Want What You Want? Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Mahmoud v. Taylor, Winnie the Pooh, and Why Children in Public Schools Deserve Beautiful Books – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

British Stuff

 

It was right to deny Communion to Chris Coghlan MP – Niall Gooch at The Critic Magazine.

 

The UK is no longer an “open” country for free expression – Freddie Attenborough at The Critic Magazine.

 

Life and Culture

 

You Don’t Need the Same Politics to Surf Together – David Litt at The Free Press.

 

Faith

 

How to Survive Prosperity: On Ministry Scandals and David’s Fall – Owen Strachan at To Reenchant the World.

 

Why Study the Declaration of Independence? – Dave Landry at Christian Americanism.

 

Country Roads – Life in 3D

 Painting: An Amusing Story, oil on canvas by Louis Emile Adan (1839-1937).

The Mud Queen

When I agreed to co-teach a Sunday School class of second graders, I had no idea of what I was going to experience. And it wasn’t the kids. 

It was my co-teacher, Carl.

 

He recruited me. We both had our youngest children – boys – in second grade. The Sunday School class needed a teacher. We’d met in an adult Sunday School class, but we weren’t particularly close friends. 

 

“Look,” Carl said, “they need a teacher for the second grade. I can entertain the kids, but you’re the teacher. We have to make this fun. We can show the kids that Sunday School is fun. And so is learning about God.”

 

To continue reading, please see my story at Cultivating Oaks Press. This is the summer edition, and the theme is merriment.

 

Photograph by Matt Seymour via Unsplash. Used with permission.