Poets and Poems: Tobi Alfier and “Goodbye Kisses”

Navigating relationships can be difficult. Marriage relationships. Parent-child relationships. Relationships between siblings or friends. They can break, again for all kinds of reasons. And it’s the aftermath of these breaks, and people traveling through modern life, that poet Tobi Alfier explores in Goodbye Kisses: Poems.  

In Alfier’s poems, the people involved wander afterward in a desolate landscape. It doesn’t matter who might have been right and who was wrong. Enough desolation exists for everyone. Some try to move on quickly. Others linger, immobilized. They walk beaches. They visit bars. They trace their hands over old carved initials in a tree. Some sit in old motel rooms, alcohol in a paper cup. Some sit at kitchen tables and stare.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

What rhyme does – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

Letters to a poet on the moon – Amelia Friedline at Innocence Abroad.

 

Morning Tea French Poem + A 100-Year-Old Tea House – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Think Small – poem by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer at Every Day Poems.

 

The Meaning for This Hebrew Word Is Uncertain – poem by Anna Friedrich at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“All the Flowers,” poem by John Webster – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Some Monday Readings - April 13, 2026

Joe the Hero – Mark Oppenheimer at The Dispatch. 

A Wonder Is What It Is – Nick Offerman at WNYC reads ‘A Warning to My Readers’ by Wendell Berry.

 

The Man Who Read Everything: Letters of Harold Bloom and six poets – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The BBC needs competition – James Hodgkinson at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Easter Rising – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Redundancy in action – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Two Critical Author Actions – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

St. Mary’s and the Putney Debates of 1647 – A London Inheritance.

 

Cockney Ding Dong – Spitalfields Life.

 

Photograph: Critic Harold Bloom.

Life instructions

After James 1:19-21 

Simple, really,

these instructions

for life, simple,

that is, to hear

but devilishly

difficult to do.

First, be quick

to hear.

Next, be slow

to speak.

Finally, be slow

to anger.

Your anger is not

God’s anger; it

doesn’t produce

God’s righteousness.

 

Photograph by Javier Allegue Barros via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Vice, Virtue, and Platforms – Elijah Blalock at The London Lyceum.

 

The Canon of the New Testament – Bradley Birzer.

Saturday Good Reads - April 11, 2026

I’d read Charles Dickens in high school (David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities), but it was only when I was working as a speechwriter for a CEO that it became serious. He read Dickens, a lot of Dickens, and I was expected to read what he read. And to quote Dickens. So, I did. And I discovered how much I enjoyed his works. I’ve visited the Dickens Museum in London five times and joined the Dickens Fellowship. I read Pickwick Papers back in the 1990s, bit I was reminded of it this week when I saw Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern post and discuss a poem Dickens included in that work – “Ode to an Expiring Frog.” 

It was called a miracle, and it may have saved the American Revolution. The British had occupied Boston, and in very short order, cannons were transported in almost impossible conditions from Fort Ticonderoga on the New York-Vermont border to the hills overlooking Boston. The ensuing bombardment forced the British to their ships in Boston Harbor. In nearby Quincy, Abigal Adams watched the bombardment and sent her observations to her husband John. The transfer of the cannons was a hugely successful operation, and it even had some involvement by none other than Benedict Arnold.

 

As many times as we’ve visited London, I can remember using the iconic red telephone box only once. It was 1983, my wife was recovering from a prescription reaction at our hotel, and I called her at 3 p.m. as the bells of St. Paul’s rang out the hour. More than 40 years later, phone boxes are generally used for one reason – for tourists to take photographs. (There’s one near Parliament Square that always has a long line of people wanted to snap a photo of a phone box with Big Ben and the houses of Parliament in the background.) Spitalfields life posted some pictures of phone boxes this week, and yes, they’re still there.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero – review by Sam Short at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

A Fleet Against One: The Continental Navy’s Embarrassing Clash Off Block Island, April 6, 1776 – Bjorn Bruckshaw at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

The Spirited Revolutionary Who Led the Fight for Independence in Corsica Also Inspired America’s Colonial Rabble-Rousers – Anna Richards at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Colonel William Hill: Hero or Disgrace? – Robert Ford at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

Faith

 

Christian astronaut pilots first moon mission in 53 years – Bobby Ross Jr. at The Christian Chronicle.

 

Art

 

The Silent Traveler – Spitalfields Life.

 

Poetry

 

Old Fred’s Night Music – Steve Knepper at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Point of Poetry? Slow Down – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

“Knowledge,” poem by Louise Bogan – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Accidentally – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

British Stuff

 

King Charles Is Failing to Defend the Faith – Garrett Exner at Providence Magazine.

 

Man on the Marquee – Andrew Duhon

Painting: Reading Woman, oil on canvas (ca. 1900) by Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861-1942), Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

He is there

After James 1:12-18 

In all the trials

of our life, he is

there. In all

the temptations

of our life, he is

there. In all

the evil we

encounter and

the sin we 

commit, he is

there. If we 

remain steadfast,

he is there. If

we fail, he is

there. He is

immutable; he

doesn’t change. 

 

Photograph by Greg Rakozy via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Crown Him with Many Crowns,” hymn by Matthew Bridges – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

My God, In Whom I Trust – Sarah Ivill at Alliance for Confessing Evangelicals.

 

“The Strife is O’er,” Latin hymn, 1695 – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Genius of Dirt – Seth Lewis.

 

The Voice of ‘A Great Awakening’ – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

Poets and Poems: Nikki Grimes and “Twice Blessed”

Welcome to Miss Vy’s Twice Blessed Secondhand Store, with both its in-store merchandise and its hosted yard sales. You will find clothes, Turkish rugs, clay pots, musical instruments, jars of old buttons, jewelry, baby furniture, coins, figurines, cups and saucers, and just about everything else you would expect to find.

You will also find stories, stories about the original owners and stories about people who purchased them from Miss Vy. And the stories are told in poetry.

 

Twice Blessed: Yard Sale Stories by writer and poet Nikki Grimes is one of the most fascinating, entertaining, and thoughtful uses of poetry I’ve read. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Guzzle – poem by Alex Mouw at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Art Talk – poem by Maureen Doallas.

 

“April,” poem by Sara Teasdale – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Black crown bird – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Poet Laura: Not the Cruelest Month – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“The Jewish Policeman” by Jonathan Dunsky

Before Adam Lapid had been a private detective living in early 1950s Tel Aviv, he’d been a police detective in Budapest, Hungary. Then the Germans came in 1944; Adolph Eichmann himself supervised the deportation of 440,000 people directly to Auschwitz. Among them were Adam, his wife, his two young daughters, and his mother. Adam was the only survivor. 

After the defeat of the Nazis, Adam made his way to Munich. He’s living in a Jewish displacement camp, self-governing but overseen by the American Army (Munich was in the American zone after the war). Adam is not simply existing; he’s looking for former Nazis who think they’ve escaped justice. And he finds one, who soon finds himself strangled in the cellar of a ruined building.

 

Adam also unexpectedly finds himself employed. The camp director asks Adam to investigate a murder, not to take over the police function, but to look into a single death. A resident had been stabbed to death in the camp’s radio room. Because only camp residents had access to the camp, that the killer would be Jewish. And that made it worse; too many Jews had already died during the war, and it seemed an obscenity that another Jew would die at the hands of one of his own.

 

Adam investigates; virtually no clues exist. He travels down blind alleys, spends countless hours investigating, and keeps dodging the man who was appointed the official policeman who resents what Adam has been asked to do. 

 

Jonathan Dunsky

The Jewish Policeman is the ninth Adam Lapid mystery by Jonathan Dunsky. All of these mysteries are thought-provoking; this one is even more than its predecessors. Dunsky more than  touches upon the unsettling idea that people who experience horrific persecution and murder can sometimes become like their persecutors and murderers. 

 

Dunsky is best known for his Adam Lapid mystery stories, with nine published: Ten Years Gone, The Dead Sister, The Auschwitz Violinist, A Debt of Death, A Deadly Act, The Auschwitz Detective, A Death in Jerusalem, In That Sleep of Death, and now The Jewish Policeman. He’s also published The Favor: A Tale of Friendship and Murder; Family Ties; Tommy’s Touch: A Fantasy Love Story; the short story “The Unlucky Woman,” and other works. He was born in Israel, served four years in the Israeli Army, lived in Europe for several years, and currently lives in Israel with his family. He has worked in various high-tech firms and operated his own search optimization business.

 

The Jewish Policeman is every bit as good as the earlier Adam Lapid mysteries. Dunsky captures the chaos and desperation of post-war Germany (Hershey Bars and American cigarettes are like currency), and he tells a good story of conflicted motives, illegal justice, and settling old scores.

 

Related:

My review of Ten Years Gone by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of The Unlucky Woman by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of The Dead Sister by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of The Auschwitz Violinist by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of A Debt of Death by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of A Deadly Act by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of Grandma Rachel’s Ghosts by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of The Auschwitz Detective by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of A Death in Jerusalem by Jonathan Dunsky.

My review of In That Sleep of Death by Jonathan Dunsky.

 

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Lucky to Be Grateful and A Passage Through the Dark– Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn and Katy Carl at Mere Orthodoxy review Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story by Wendell Berry.

 

Why Cormac McCarthy Stands Alone Among Novelists – Will Hoyt at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writing a Novel at Burger King – Lana McAra at In the Writer’s Chair (via LinkedIn). 

Poets and Poems: Alexander Voloshin and “Sidetracked”

Alexander Voloshin (1884-1960) was born in the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. He had a career in theater, but World War I intervened and he became part of the Imperial Army. Then the Russian Revolution happened, and he found himself involved in the White-Red Civil War. When the Communists triumphed, Voloshin remained briefly in the Crimea. That was followed by a travel odyssey to Berlin, Brazil, and then Ellis Island. After a time in New York City, he made his way to Los Angeles and Hollywood, like thousands of other émigré Russians.  

In Hollywood, he worked as a waiter and as an extra in movies. He was an actor in some 12 movies, the best known of which was “The World and the Flesh” (1932), starring Miriam Hopkins. The movie, set during the Russian Revolution, is about a rather nasty Communist revolutionary (Hollywood was big on Russian Revolution movies at the time). After his last role in 1937 (“Daughter of Shanghai,” starring Anna May Wong), Voloshin tried founding a theater magazine and writing for other publications. 

 

Voloshin was also a poet. He published one work, a saga of the Russian émigré experience from the revolution to his contemporary day. The work disappeared, until poet and translator Boris Dralyuk found a copy. Dralyuk has a deep interest in the Russian émigré experience; last year, he published his own poetry collection entitled My Hollywood.

 

Dralyuk translated and published Voloshin’s poem under its original title, Sidetracked: Exile in Hollywood. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Up on the Hill’s Back – poem by David Whyte.

 

Poetry Prompt: Meet Your Muse Euterpe – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

The Chronicles of Never – poem by Baruch November at Every Day Poems.

 

“The Day of Judgment,” poem by Isaac Watts – Josph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Review of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, translated by A.M. Juster – Richard Wakefield at New Verse Review.

Some Monday Readings - April 6, 2026

How ‘Tiny Shortcuts’ Are Poisoning Science – Thomas Plumper and Eric Neumayer at The MIT Press Reader. 

The Bills That Destroyed Urban America – Joseph Lawler at The New Atlantis.

 

A Truck Driver Spent 20 Years Building a Miniature Model of New York City. Then, It Went Viral – Sarah Cascone at Artnet.

 

Selma Hall, Jefferson County, Missouri – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

 

Spies and Lies: The Rosenbergs and America’s Atomic Secrets – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Ancient Splendor: Roman Art in the Time of Trajan – St. Louis Art Museum (video).

 

Editor, Do Your Work! – Tery Whalin at The Writing Life.

Photograph: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

 

The origin of good

After James 1:12-18 

Every good gift,

every one, every

good and perfect

gift comes from

above, from the hand

of God. He doesn’t 

change; thus it has

always been and

thus it will always

be. That includes

us. Fallen as we are,

he brought us into

the world by his

own will, his own

choice. He brought

us forth in truth,

because he designed

us to be the first fruits

of his creatures.

 

Photograph by Glynn Young.

He is Risen -- Jeff Johnson

Some Sunday Readings

 

Aquinas, AI, and the Pursuit of Learning – Alex Stevens at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Grave Robber – poem by Kelly Belmonte at Kelly’s Scribbles.

 

Guys, Try Church – Wil Rahn at The Free Press.

Saturday Good Reads – April 4, 2026

King Charles III will not issue an Easter message this year, according to Buckingham Palace. He did, however, issue one for Ramadan. A sign of the times? In The Wall Steet Journal, Brit Louise Perry writes that Christendom is no more, and not just in Britain (article unlocked). Canada, for example, has a new hate crime bill which seems to target Christians. Some in Britain have noted that, while the Anglican church seems close to collapse, there is a revival underway. Rhys Laverty at The Critic Magazine says the reports of revival in Britain are not premature, but it’s a phenomenon mostly associated with evangelical and Catholic churches. 

We are assaulted with so much news these days that the temptation is to turn it off. All of it. And yet so much if it is accepted narrative masquerading as news. We slip into our respective siloes to make sense of it all. Joe Duke at Front Porch Republic argues that there’s a better way then listening only to echo chambers.

 

On Easter, Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder went looking for the best evidence of the resurrection.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

These 7 foreigners helped win the American Revolution – Claire Barrett at Military Times.

 

A Brief Introduction to the Slaving Empire of Henry Laurens – Greg Brooking and George Burkes at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

“Remember the Ladies” – 250 Years Later – Christ Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Don’t Call Them Pirates – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Life and Culture

 

The State of the Internet 2026 – Austin Gravley at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

American Diner Gothic – Robert Mariani at The New Atlantis.

 

American Stuff

 

Gratitude, Not Glory: Why Lincoln Rejected Triumph at Gettysburg – Andrew Lang at The Coolidge Review. 

 

Route 66: The Road of Endless Possibilities – Elena Scherr at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Orwell, Lewis, and Us: What Contemporaries Share Without Seeing – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

British Stuff

 

The Tower of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Poetry

 

“Far Over Misty Mountain Cold,” by J.R.R Tolkien – Andrew Henry at The Saxon Cross.

 

The fruit of laughter – poem by Amelia Friedline at Innocence Abroad.

 

His Mercy is More – Matt Boswell and Matt Papa

 Illustration: A man reading a book, by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690).

Trials and temptations

After James 1:12-18 

The first thing we need

to grasp is that temptations

do not come from God.

Perhaps from the devil,

perhaps from our own

fallen nature. God can’t

be tempted; nor does he

tempt anyone. Our own

desire is another story. 

It comes from us. We’re

lured by our own desire;

it draws us like the siren's

call. When it’s conceived,

desire gives way to sin,

which leads to death.

It’s not God; it’s us.

 

Photograph by Jametlene Reskp via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Hell to Pay: What Truly Happened to Jesus on the Cross – Nick Batzig at Beautiful Christian Life.

 

“Pilate,” poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Psalm 22 – poem by Andy Patton at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“Hawks in Holy Week,” poem by Sally Thomas – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“It Is Finished!” – Robb Brunansky at Cripplegate.

 

“Ballad of the Trees and Master,” poem by Sidney Lanier – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Linda Nemec Foster and “Amber Necklace of Gdansk”

If the information on the Family Search website is accurate, my paternal ancestors can be traced back to 1520s England. A few would eventually emigrate to America in the 1620s and late 1600s. On my mother’s side, the first group arrived in the 1720s; more followed in the 1760s. The final group arrived in the first great German migration to America in the 1830s. I’m not sure when one’s ancestry becomes important, but I can say I discovered it fairly young, put it on hold for a few decades, and then came back to it. 

In 2001, poet Linda Nemec Foster published a poetry collection, Amber Necklace of Gdansk, that reads like a study of where she came from. In this case, it’s Poland. Ancestors had emigrated from Poland to America, settling in Cleveland. Growing up in the Cleveland area, Foster became aware of the stories of the old country and the family customs that carried over.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Written in March,” poem by William Wordsworth – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Hymn of Heavenly Beauty – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song on the poetry of Edmund Spenser. 

 

The Great American Poetry Competition – Society of Classical Poets.

 

“The Donkey,” poem by G.K. Chesterton – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Some Wednesday Readings – April 1, 2026

On Judging Books – Matt Reynolds at Mere Orthodoxy. 

Waking Up Chancellorsville – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Canada wants to make quoting the Bible illegal – Jane Stannus at The Spectator.

 

What Memoir Scandals Tell Us About Two LLM Writing Scandals – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

The Abolition of the Hereditary Lords & the Death of England – John Horvat at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Activism, Uncensored: No Kings in LA – Ford Fischer at Racket News.

 

Traveling America and Lecturing Like a Madman – Bradley Birzer. 

 

What Are Iran’s Centers of Gravity and How Are They Being Attacked? – John Spencer at Urban Warfare. 

 

Photograph: A hall in the Palace of Westminster in London, home of the House of Commons and House of Lords.