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.

Poets and Poems: Fred Chappell at "Ever After"

I came to the writing of Fred Chappell (1936-2024) through his novels. A friend at work, who’d grown up in the mountains of West Virginia, recommended I read I Am One of You Forever. It’s set where most of Chappell’s novels are set – the mountains of western North Carolina. And it’s a wonder. Over the years, I read several of his other novels and story collections. Superficially, Chappell might sound like North Carolina’s answer to Kentucky’s Wendell Berry. Even though they’re approximate contemporaries writing about family, heritage, and place, they’re very different kinds of writers. 

 

It was only in 2015 that I discovered how Chappell had first made his name – through poetry. I happened across a used copy of his 2000 collection, River: A Poem. It’s one poem with 11 divisions, and it tells a story, the story of his grandparents. It’s aptly named; reading it is like wading through a river of memory and family history. 

 

As it turns out that River is one of some 18 collections of poetry that Chappell published between 1971 and 2009. In fact, he published more poetry volumes than works of fiction. In 2024, the year of his death, LSU Press published his last collection, Ever After: Poems.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Fray Alonso in La Florida, A.D. 1587 – Coldy Ilardo at Power & Glory.

 

Morning sticks – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“Alice in the Looking Glass,” poem by A.E. Stallings – Joseph Bottum and Adam Roberts at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Apple of Granada – Hedy Habra at Every Day Poems. 

Around Three in the After – Laura Wifler at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Monday Readings - May 11, 2026

Revolting England – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Not-so-bookish thoughts about book clubs – Kelly Belmonte at Bandersnatch Books.

 

Serious Reading Was Always a Minority Sport – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Back When the Pulitzer Meant Something – Liel Leibovitz at The Free Press.

 

When You Hear Crickets – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

The Spitalfields Roman Woman – Spitalfields Life.

 

The Royal Festival Hall at 75 – A London Inheritance.

 

The Gratitude Shift – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

Photograph by Clay Banks via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The mission

After Matthew 16:21-30 

He explains the mission,

building his church, and

then he amplifies it,

over time, outlining

the story of what was

to come: to go

to Jerusalem; to suffer

at the hands of the elites,

the elders, the priests,

the scribes; to die; to be

raised. Peter, ever ready

to speak, often without

thinking, rebukes him:

it will never happen,

implying they will

rally to his defense

and protect him. Peter

is rebuked, this rock

upon which the church

will be built, called

a hindrance preoccupied

with the ways of man,

not God.

 

Photograph by Luke Miller via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Sunday Style and the Devil’s Beat – Andrew Osenga.

 

Mom, You’re Amazing. Here’s Why – Grace Thomas at Gracenotes.

 

Motherhood is Fun – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Missions Will Draw Out the Worst in You – Brett Rahl at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads - May 9, 2026

Many of us grew up reciting “Listen, my children, and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” Those opening lines of the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and what followed became our understanding of the famous and mythic ride. But as the Smithsonian Magazine points out, Paul Revere had another race, now forgotten, to secure government documents, of all things.  

Ray Bradbury is famous for the novel Fahrenheit 451 and stories like The Martian Chronicles. He also believed in freedom of speech and fought censorship. Bradley Birzer writes at Modern Age that Bradbury should be seen as an advocate of freedom, not ideology. Speaking of freedom, Birzer himself just published a new book this past week, The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty.

 

Randy Alcorn has a post about heaven, and it’s an intriguing one. He writes that many believe in eight common myths, and that’s all they are, myths.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Before 1776, There Was Rhode Island – Bjorn Bruckshaw at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

George Washington Crosses the Delaware – Keli Holt at Just Enough History. 

 

The Odyssey and Irrelevance of John Adams – Kevin Diestelow at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

A Naval Battle off Wilmington, DE, May 8, 1776 – Eric Sterner at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Most Powerful Words You’ll Ever Write Change You First – Jana Carlson.

 

Poetry

 

On Nostalgia: Ever Cleaner, Ever More Pillowy – Boris Dralyuk at Poetry Magazine.

 

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

 

Trees – poem by David Whyte.

 

“Mock Panegyric on a Young Friend,” poem by Jane Austen – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Wrong Kind of Black Poet – Ernest Jesuyemi at Compact.

 

‘A Small Rebellion Against the Machine’ – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review interviews poet Seth Wieck.

 

Why Don’t People Like Poetry? – Daniel Cowper at New Verse Review.

 

Faith

 

Why AI Will Not Replace Human Love – Elena Streett at Front Porch Republic.

 

British Stuff

 

‘A remarkable time capsule’: The enchanting history of Oxford University’s 750-year-old medieval library – Christian Kriticos at BBC.

 

Life and Culture

 

How the Far Left Tapped into a Money Machine – Roy Teixiera at The Free Press.

 

Nobody Teaches Arithmetic Anymore – Dan Murphy at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

News Media

 

Substack vs. Twitter – Competitors or Complementary? – Yuri Bezmenov at How to Subvert Subversion.

 

What An Awesome God – Phil Wickham

 

Painting: Reading Woman, oil on canvas by Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861-1942), Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

The rock

After Matthew 16:16-20 

What do the people

say, he asked, who

do the people say 

I am? Perfunctory

and expected answers:

John the Baptist,

Elijah, Jeremiah,

a prophet like them,

that’s what the people

say. He makes it personal:

What about you? Who

do you say I am? 

Simon Peter, ever large

and ever in charge,

answers, the Christ,

the son of the living God.

He responds: blessed

are you, Upon you,

upon this rock, 

I will build my church.

 

Photograph by Zoltan Tasi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

The One Walking in the Fog Beside Us – Lara d’Entremont at A Mother Held.

 

Let the Lord Handle It – Chris Martin at FYI.

 

“Awake, Arise,” hymn by Christopher Smart – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Ingredients of a Petal – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

Milking a Two-Bucket Cow – Linda Egenes at Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices.