Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution

We learned this back in elementary school. If one poet’s name sits atop the poetry of the American Revolution, that name is Philip Freneau (1752-1832). And like the new nation he was part of, he kept re-inventing himself.  

The Freneau family came from La Chappelle, France, in the Ardennes Forst and near the current Belgian border. The family was Huguenot, not exactly the best faith option in Catholic France. In 1707, Andre Freneau emigrated to New York in America and became part of the Huguenot colony there. He married and had five children. One of his sons, Pierre, became part of the family business married in 1748. His oldest child was born in 1752 and named Philip. Ten years later, the well-to-do family moved to New Jersey, although Philip remained in boarding school in New York. In 1768, aged 16, the boy entered Princeton University, set upon becoming a minister.

 

At Princeton, however, Pilip discovered writing. He’d read widely in the English poets and Latin classics, and he was already composing poetry. In his class at Princeton was a young man who became a lifelong friend – James Madison. Freneau, Madison, and others were beginning to get up in the spirit of the times, and it was an anti-British, increasingly independent spirit. (In 1770, the senior class voted to wear only clothes of American manufacture for commencement.)

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Dust – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Metastatic – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Orphan Lamb – poem by David Whyte.

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s Ambivalent War on AI – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

“Chicago,” poem by Carl Sandburg – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Battle of Blenheim,” poem by Robert Southey – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Reading Moby Dick – Chris Arnade Walks the World.

The Job in Which No Day Was Like Any Other

I worked as director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools for seven months. I’d gone through the strangest job interview I’d ever had, and I had a first day on the job unlike any other I had had or anyone I knew had had. But I figured that, after that tumultuous first day, things would settle down. 

I figured wrong. 

 

Things would never settle down. Every day would be unlike every other day. 

 

One ongoing source of turmoil was the Board of Education itself, the seven people elected by voters to oversee the district’s operations. Four had been elected on a reform slate. Three had not. Most of the turmoil generated by the Board came from those three. 

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

Photograph of the Headquarters building by St. Louis Public Schools.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Advice for Older Writers – Nathan Bransford.

 

“On Being Cautioned Against Walking on an Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic,” sonnet by Charlotte Turner Smith – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Bradford Skow and “American Independence in Verse”

Before the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, there was at least some 15 years of growing American disenchantment with Britain. The roots of the American Revolution lie in the French and Indian War (1756-1763), but it’s often said that the American Declaration of Independence has its roots in the Magna Carta.  

Fortunately, the historical landscape is littered with documentation of what was happening in the American colonies: statements, declarations, letters, newspaper reports, speeches, and more. The 15 years before the Declaration was a ferment of ideas, debates, and arguments that grew with every new event, every new action by the British government.

 

What is striking about all this is what a literate ferment it was. Menand women argued literately on both sides of the governance and independence question. You can read only some of these documents before you realize how articulate and passionate they are.

 

And poetic.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

4^th Sunday of Each Month – poem by J.A. Gilbert at Frivolous Quill.

 

New Video! – Brookhaven | Civil War Novel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Seeing Slant in the Company of Others – Eric Malczewski at Front Porch Republic.

 

“The Men That Don’t Fit In,” poem by Robert Service – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Crème Brulee -- poem by Toby Alfier at Every Day Poems.

“Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible” by Shelly Eshkoli

If I were asked to name women in the Bible, my answer would come out rather perfunctory. Other than Eve, my answer would gravitate to the New Testament. Mary. Mary Magdalene. Martha. The woman at the well. Priscilla, friend of Paul. The woman who touched Jesus’s robe. All people from the New Testament. 

I have to think harder about the Old Testament. Then they surface. Sarah. Pharoah’s daughter. Rachel and Leah. Rebecca. There are more. They all have stories, some short and some longer. But there are also women who appear and then almost vanish.

 

Writer Shelly Eshkoli aims to correct that with Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible. She features 10 women from the Old Testament, some named and some nameless, who appear in the accounts and then almost vanish, or as Eshkoli might say, almost erased.

 

Shelly Eshkoli

The 10 women are Zipporah, the wife of Moses; the daughter of Jephthah in the Book of Judges; Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah; Lot’s wife; Jael, the woman known for a mallet and nail; Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah; Athaliah, the murderous daughter of Jezebel; Esther, the queen of Persia who saved the people of Israel; the Queen of Sheba; and the witch of Endor, consulted by Saul and supposedly summoning the ghost of the prophet Samuel.

 

Eshkoli begins each account with a fictional “scroll,” allowing each woman to tell her story in her own words. Then a solid, well-researched account follows. Eshkoli sifts through history, archaeology. Linguistics, and other sources to draw a picture of each woman and the times in which she lived. What emerges is a nuanced, thoughtful discussion which brings depth to the story of each woman.

 

The author is a well-known and highly regard tour guide and group leader in Jerusalem and the Biblical lands of Israel. She holds an M.A. degree in Biblical Studies and is also a lecturer and teacher, bringing in-depth knowledge of the life and culture of the ancient Near East to her work.

 

Unveiled is an engaging look at 10 women of the Bible we know little about. Eshkoli brings them alive on the page, and we can see the vital role they played in the Bible story.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

America at 250: Teaching with Honesty and Gratitude – Janie Cheaney at Redeemed Reader.

 

The Sad Death of Tabloid English – Christopher Gage at Oxford Sour.

 

The Siege of Basing House – A London Inheritance.

 

Spring Blossoms and Untimely Reflections – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Prince Andrei and War and Peace.

Patience

After James 5:7-12 

Patience is a trial,

but it is also to what

you are called, so

be patient, for

the Lord will come.

Follow the farmer,

who knows his fields

and waits for

the harvest to come.

The coming of the lord

is soon; the coming

of the Lord is at hand.

That is what you’re

awaiting, and patience

will be rewarded, just

as the farmer is rewarded

with his harvest.

 

Photograph by Free Walking Tour Salzburg via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Lost Art of a Wandering Mind – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

‘Religious Affections’: Textbook of the American Soul – Obbie Tyler Todd at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads – June 27, 2026

If there is one national flag recognized the world over today, it’s the flag of the United States. At one time, it was Britain’s Union Jack. Guy Iynn at History tells the story of these two flags and where they came from. Stewart McLaurin at USA Today writes the American flag helped the country evolve and unite. 

For the past few weeks, you can’t open any social media platform without seeing Europeans visiting for the World Cup and discovering the America they never knew existed. The reports became so widespread that even the mainstream media began to notice. But these visitors also did something else – they reminded us of the great country Americans themselves forgot existed.

 

Following Keir Starmer’s resignation Monday, Britain will now have its seventh prime minister in a decade. That decade of instability started officially when Britain voted to leave the European Union in the vote known as Brexit. Douglas Murray argues in The Free Press that Britain’s leaders forgot how to lead. Arthur Reynolds at The Critic Magazine says the Civil Service was the ruin of Starmer. And writer Fred de Frossard looks at the decade and explains why Brexit was right. 

 

It had grown and lasted for at least 800 years. Some said it was even older, 1,000 or even 1,500 years. But it is no more. The Major Oak has died. And some see the death as symbolizing far more than an old, dead tree.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Forgotten Scot Behind the Declaration of Independence – Samuel Gregg at The Coolidge Review.

 

The Essential Paintings of Our Nation – Judith Dobrzynski at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

The Tobacco Raid of 1779 – Marc Drolet at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Founding Fathers had a real revolution to overcome before they could win the war – J.H. Cook at Fox News.

 

New York’s Underdogs Prepare to Fight – Jonathan Horn t The Free Press.

 

Scots in the Revolution & the British Southern Pivot – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

When the Colonists Fasted for Independence – Sarah Gleim at History.

 

Faith

 

Loaves, Fish, and Un-Self-Conscious Little Boys – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Kingdom of Trees – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

“O Abany”: Novelist William Kennedy on His Great Cycle of the City – Library of America (video).

 

Luxury Muzhik – Adam Thirlwell at London Review of Books reviews Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky.

 

50 Years of Creative Destruction in the Book World – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Winged Words: Reading & Discussing Great Books – Peter Kalkavage at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poetry

 

“Life and Love: A Song,” poem by John Wilmor, Earl of Rochester – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“An Essay on Man,” poem by Alexander Pope (excerpt) – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Thank You Jesus for the Blood – Charity Gayle

 Painting: The Morning Chapter, oil on canvas by Charles Spencelayh (1865-1958).

Watch it, rich man!

After James 4:10-5:6 

A fundamental question:

what do you do with

your wealth? What do

you do with all the Lord

has blessed you with?

Riches for the sake

of riches is chasing

after the wind. You

blink your eyes, and

your riches have rotted,

your clothes become rags,

your stocks have crashed,

your banks have closed,

your comfortable life

of indulgence have ended.

You’ve condemned and

defrauded the righteous

person. It is time for you

to weep and howl for

the miseries coming

upon you.

 

Photograph by Jingming Pan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Treasures of TANAKH Hebrew: Hineni,” poem by Brian Volck – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

A Lot of Christian Tech Criticism is Missing Three Important Things – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Icthus – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” hymn by Reginald Heber – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

A pair of sonnets for St. John the Baptist – Malcolm Guite.

 

A Puddle of Pure Joy – Seth Lewis.