Poets and Poems: Ayala Zarfijian and “A Corner in the World”

“The war endures in you,” writes poet Ayala Zarfjian, “It lingers in your capillaries, / in your arteries, / in your veins. / The war is a river that bridges the past to the present.”  The war she’s speaking about is World War II and the part of the war that made it unlike any other – the Holocaust. If you’re Jewish, the Holocaust is not something that’s ever over. 

That’s the theme that threads through every poem in Zarfjian’s collection A Corner in the World. She wrote the poems specifically for her father, who survived the Holocaust while most of the family perished. Zarfjian has written them so that the stories they tell, and the people they’re about, will not be forgotten, that the Holocaust itself will not be written off as someone’s crazy conspiracy theory but the real destruction of people, millions of people, that tragically, horribly happened.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

An Overness – poem by Anna Friedrich at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Eve Letter: Home Economics – poem by Kathryn Weld at Every Day Poems.

 

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” poem by William Butler Yeats – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Vogue exploring – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

Some Monday Readings - May 18, 2026

A Realist Outline of History – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Why Read? Reading, print culture & liberal democracy – Roosevelt Montas at Commonweal Magazine.

 

God vs. Machine: How to Handle the Rise of Religious Objections to AI in the Workplace – Kit Eaton at Inc. Magazine.

 

David Copperfield: A Hero Beside the Point – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Octopus’s Garden” – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: Lord Byron’s Memoirs – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Case Study: 80-Year-Old Author Crushes It! – Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur.

 

“Language matters: On the media’s anti-American animus – The New Criterion.

 

Fuel for Another Disappointment – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Consider the Small Town – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

St. Irenaeus on Christian Memory & Tradition – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

Painting: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824).

What did they see?

After James 2:14-26 

I wonder about

the early days,

when followers

of the Way were

growing in number,

growing in geography,

fueled by the Spirit.

But what did 

the people around

them see? Preachers

of philosophies and

new things and 

new gods were 

a dime a dozen;

they were all over

the culture. What

made the Way 

different? It was

because of what

these believers

did, how they

cared for the

the widows,

the orphans,

the rejected,

the sick, the poor,

the shunned – 

all those people

ignored and

left as road kill

by the world.

People watched,

they saw, they

understood, they

acted, wanting

that for themselves.

 

Photograph by Tahamie Farooqui via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

A Sonnet for Ascension Day – Malcolm Guite.

 

Won’t Somebody Think of (Having the) Children – Stephen McAlpine.

 

Saturday Good Reads – May 16, 2026

When the American Revolution started, a group not insignificant in numbers and influence was not impressed. They were known as the Loyalists, and as Kimberly Nath at The Conversation writes, they paid a steep price for their allegiance to Britain. At the same publication, Amanda Moniz writes about an unintended effect of the American Revolution. The conflict which led to American political independence also transformed philanthropy, not only in America but in Britain as well. 

It’s one of the most famous of American short stories. A young couple give up their most treasured possessions for each other. John Savoie at Literary Matters writes that the biblical allusions in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry is far more present than the story’s title.

 

In 1862, Nathaniel Hawthorne found himself almost unable to write. He was distracted by the growing conflict we now call the Civil War. So, he went to Washington, D.C., to observe what was happening from one of the two epicenters of the conflict. Richard Smith at Emerging Civil War has the story.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Exhibitions marking 250^th anniversary of the US open in New York – J. Cabelle Ahn at The Art Newspaper.

 

Why 1776? – J.M. McDonald at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

The Limits of a Propositional Nation – Glen Sproviero at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Death of Colonel Christopher Greene at Pine’s Bridge, May 1781 – Bjorn Bruckshaw at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Escape from Yorktown – Nicholas Marsella at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Part of the Declaration Nobody Reads – Eli Lake at The Free Press.

 

General Benedict Arnold and the Battle of Saratoga – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Writing and Literature

 

In Marce Catlett, Wendell Berry Remembers for All of Us – Robert Ordway at Front Porch Republic.

 

Bookish Diversions: How the Pros Do It – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

The Midlist, the Middlemen and the Future of American Literature – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Consider the Sister – Lindsey Adler at The Small Bow on David Foster Wallace.

 

American Stuff

 

Lincoln’s Illegal Arrests – Joseph Connor at American Heritage.

 

Life and Culture

 

Beyond the Precipice – Michael Oren at Clarity.

 

Throwback Thursday: Dealing with Crime – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Faith

 

“Christ Hath a Garden,” hymn by Isaac Watts – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Dangerous Days Past Middle Age – Michelle Morin at Desiring God.

 

Poetry

 

“Dream Song,” poem by Walter de la Mare – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

To Tell It How It Is – Christian Lingner at New Verse Review.

 

Nothing But the Blood – Tommee Profitt x Jeremy Rosado

 

Painting: In the Scriptorium, oil on canvas by Friedrich Hornemann (1813-1890). 

Works! Faith!

After James 2:14-26 

Faith alone saves,

but it is faith with

works that justifies.

Works alone do not 

save; they must be

attended and enveloped

by faith. Both matter.

Both are necessary.

Faith without works

is dead. Works without

faith will not save you.

Works come from faith,

not to earn God’s favor,

but to demonstrate 

God’s power to transform.

Works with faith changes

the won who does them 

as much as the one who

receives.

 

Photograph by Billy Pasco via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Central Moment,” poem by A.F. Moritz – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

The Best Way to Resist Temptation – Seth Lewis.

 

Heart of the Verse: Psalm 34:18 – Jason Clark at This is Jason.

 

Dimensions – Patrick Luscri.

Poets and Poems: Julia Alvarez and :Visitations

Have you ever read a poetry collection that catapults you back three decades? 

Another lifetime ago (35 years, to be exact), I wrote book reviews for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It was an offshoot from a graduate seminar on the Latin American novel. I had more than liked the assigned readings; I’d discovered a world that went beyond the one Latin American novel I’d previously read, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

 

At the time I started writing book reviews, publishing was in the midst of a Latin American boomlet, an echo of the original “boom” in the 1960s and 1970s. After an introductory conversation, the newspaper’s book editor began routing any book relating to Latin America, Spain, and Hispanic culture in the United States. 

 

One of the books I reviewed was How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) by writer and poet Julia Alvarez. It’s a story about four sisters in the Dominican Republic whose father is forced to flee the Trujillo regime. Her parents return to New York City, becoming with their children people of two cultures. It’s a novel, but it’s drawn from Alvarez’s own family history.

 

Thirty-five years later, I picked up her new poetry collection, Visitations: Poems. And, suddenly, I was back in 1991, reading How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Shakespeare,” poem by Matthew Arnold – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Blue sky – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“Properties of a Good Greyhound,” poem by Dame Juliana Berners – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

When You Hit a Writing Drought

Since the time I was a reporter for my college newspaper, longer ago than I care to admit, writing has been an integral part of my life. I’ve been a reporter, editor, newsletter editor, speechwriter, public relations manager, novelist, short story writer, non-fiction book author, blogger, book reviewer, essayist, poet, and more. Writing has been central in every job I held and every employer I worked for. 

I never had time for writer’s block. A speech had to be written. News releases had deadlines. Contracts had to be met. Employers had expectations (or demands, often unreasonable). I might have a project where I had to pause to understand the challenge fully, but I’d figure out a way through it.

 

What I’ve had for the last year isn’t writer’s block. I still blog, write book reviews, and even write a few short stories. But the flood of writing that’s carried me for 50-plus years has slowed considerably. It’s less of a block and more of a “moderate drought.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW blog.

 

Photograph by Glenn Carstens-Peters via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Micro Monday #56: Cuba, Missouri, 1961 – short fiction by Tom Darin Liskey at Fictive Dream.

 

Murders for May – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

‘Institutional Poverty’ in Charles Dickens and Barbara Kingsolver – Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb at Mere Orthodoxy.