Saturday Good Reads - Oct. 3, 2026

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.” 

Next Wednesday, Oct. 7, Tweetspeak Poetry is hosting its Random Acts of Poetry. It’s an annual thing, in which you commit random acts of poetry in public places, including social media. (No, you don’t have to recite poetry in public; you can chalk your driveway, if that works.)  One year, and I believe it was 2015, we were in London when the day arrived. My wife thought I was crazy, and I probably was, but I left short poems on slips of paper in our hotel’s restaurant, in the café at the National Theatre, on the rube and the bus, and in a pew at St. Martin-in-the-Field Church on Trafalgar Square. (I suppose you could say I committed quiet, anonymous acts of random poetry. I almost felt like a poetic counterpart to Banksy.) Anyway, you can find the details and suggestions here. 

 

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. 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Closing the Ring: George Washington’s War in the North 1778-1781 – review by Sam Short at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

The Battle of Cowpens: Correcting a Historical Error – Dennis Amos at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The American Frontier, Native War and Diplomacy – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Art

 

Curator Q&A: Simon Kelly discusses “Women Impressionists and the Land” – St. Louis Art Museum.

 

British Stuff

 

Hitler ordered my father’s death – but an SS general spared his life – David Lascelles at History Extra.

 

If these stones could talk – Conor McKee at The New Criterion on Stories of the Stones by Paul Robichaud.

 

Poetry

 

“On the Mississippi,” poem by Hamlin Garland – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm – poem by Wallace Stevens.

 

Outsourcing the Sun – poem by Kimberly Joyce Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Israel

 

Israel is Winning – Douglas Murray at The Free Press (article unlocked).

 

Faith

 

Invade or Retreat from Politics? – Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason.

 

American Stuff

 

Author Q&A: Theodore Savas and The Indispensable Man – Civil War Books and authors.

 

Bill Nighy explores The Courtauld Gallery

Painting: Old Man Reading a Book, oil on canvas (1889) by Joaquín Agrasot y Juan (1836-1919).

What is repentance?

After Luke 3:1-22

What is repentance,

they ask. What do

we do?

 

He stares, then,

He speaks:

 

Share with those 

who need. Feed

those who hunger.

Don’t extort

with threats,

blackmail and lies.

Be content with

what you’ve been 

given.

 

These are the words

that portend what 

is coming.

These are the words

that herald the One.

These are the words

that will overturn

their lives, overturn

their world.

 

Photograph by Jametlene Reskp via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Adam, Walking,” poem by Ashley Anna McHugh – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“O Jesus, Thou art Standing,” hymn by William Walsham – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Case Against Video Preaching – Erik Lundeen at Mere Orthodoxy.

Reading Paul Celan for the First Time

I’ve been reading a biography of the poet Paul Celan (1920-1970). I must confess my ignorance; I’d never read his poetry before. And I thought, for what turned out to be an explainable reason, that he was French. I was close – he lived in France for about the last 20 years of his life. 

It was the biography, published this year by Anna Arno (and translated from the Polish,) that lead me to his poetry, which has been collected into two, rather large, volumes. Memory Rose into Threshold covers his early poems; Breathturn into Timestead covers the later poems. The two volumes are more than 700 pages each; pat of the reason is that the poems are published in both English and the language Celan wrote poetry in – German.

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

Photograph: Paul Celan in 1952.

Some Thursday Readings

 

[love is more thicker than forget], poem by E.E. Cummings – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Untamed Daughter,” poem by A.M Juster – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“My House, I Say,” poem by Robert Louis Stevenson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Quite Slowly – poem by Seth Lewis.

Some Wednesday Readings – Sept. 30, 2026

Of Star Wars and Finnegan’s Wake – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

The Ethics of Socrates – Bradley Birzer.

 

Silence in Ruins – Geoffrey Kurtz at Front Porch Republic.

 

Do You Hand Down or Melt the Family Silver? – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Richard Jeffries in the City of London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Michaelmas: a sonnet for St. Michael the Archangel – Malcolm Guite.

 

Murders for September – Jerey Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

The long peace: On American military power and technology – Nicholas Zamiska at The New Criterion.

 

From six years ago: Dancing Prince: Anticipating a DNA Study of Vikings? – at Dancing Priest.

 

Photograph by Steinar Engeland via Unsplash. Used with permission.

  

Poets and Poems: Christian Wiman and "The Dance"

I hesitated before deciding whether to write about The Dance, the new collection of poetry by Christian Wiman. It wasn’t because I didn’t like; I did, enormously. It was more like the experience of entering the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, or the little chapel in the crypt of St. Bride’s Church in London. You feel the weight of the experience and the inevitable silence, even in a crowded room.  

With The Dance, you’ve stepped into a quiet that demands you listen without speaking. 

 

I’ve had this experience before with Wiman’s writing, both his poetry and his memoir, My Bright Abyss. That memoir was so intense that I needed three months to read it, sometimes only a paragraph or a page a day. I was reading it when I took an overseas trip, and I deliberately left it home because I knew it would overshadow everything I was about to see. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Finding & Singing: Ten Things to Notice When You Read a Poem – Scott Crider at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

“Youth and Age on Beaulieu River,” poem by John Betjeman – Alexander Fayne.

 

Brink – poem by Andrew Roycroft.

 

Joseph’s Amazement: Reconciling Suspense in St. Robert Southwell’s Poetry – Emily Ransom at Church Life Journal.

 

“I Read My Sentence Steadily,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Reading in Emily’s House – poem by Andrea Potos at Every Day Poems.

 

On repentance – poem by Sarah Spradlin at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Monday Readings – Sept. 28, 2026

 

Treasuring the Process: On the Hard Work of Human Creation – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street. 

 

A focus for our writing – Lancia Smith at Cultivating a Writer’s Life.

 

The Doors of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Hope in an Age of Enclosure – Joe Knight at Plough.

 

The One, the Many, and the In-Between – Luke Sheahan at Law & Liberty.

 

Remembering Wendell Berry – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

30 Years Ago I published Wendell Berry – by Hand – Alan Cornett at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Avoid This Common Writing Flaw – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Photograph: A doorway in London by Isaac via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The voice in the wilderness

After Luke 3:1-22 

The prophet appears

in the wilderness,

crying in the wilderness,

his message simple:

Prepare.

Prepare the way

of the Lord. 

The salvation

of the Lord

is at hand.

 

The crowds heard,

they came, bringing

themselves to be

baptized, like

Gentiles becoming

Jews. Did they expect

to hear themselves

called a vipers’ brood,

hypocrites, incompetent,

objects of wrath?

 

Bear fruit, he says.

Heritage and blood

mean nothing. Taking

refuge in Abraham

is futile. Repent,

you brood of vipers.

Repent!

 

Photograph by Annie Spratt via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Perfect Sabbath --- poem by Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.

 

Christ Delights in Work Well Done – Ryan Dembeck at Desiring God.