Poets and Poems: Rowan Evans and "A Method, A Path"

British poet Rowan Evans is a musician. And a poet. And a musician-poet. And likely a poet-musician. He’s composed music for guitar, keyboard, cello, strings, synthesizer, and electronics. His music has been used in theater, art installations, short films, animation, and performances. He’s a sound designer, so it’s no surprise that his music sounds designed for poetry and his poems for music. 

Listen to his web site’s playlist. Choose any of the eight selections listed; I was particularly taken with “Dunes” and “Ocean.” Poems began to play through my mind as I listened. I’m not sure how Evans does it, but it’s a marvel.

 

A Method, A Path is his first full collection; he previously published a chapbook. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Louise Gluck: The Art of Poetry No. 115 – Henri Cole at The Paris Review.

 

Advent 1955 – John Betjeman at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Things Worth Remembering: September 1, 1939 – Douglas Murray at The Free Press on the poem by W.H. Auden. 

 

The Things I Never Thought Possible – Until October 7 – Mathias Dopfner at The Free Press.

A Review of All 5 Dancing Priest Novels

Bill Grandi is a pastor in Indiana, cyclist, and regular blogger (two blogs, Cycleguy’s Spin and Living in the Shadow). Cycleguy’s Spin is about whatever might happen to be on Bill’s mind, and it’s always worth reading. Living in the Shadow is about his pastoral work, written largely for his flock but applicable to the rest of us as well. He often discusses what he’s working on for his sermons, inviting comment and commentary. 

He also turns out to be a faithful reader of the Dancing Priest novels. 

 

Bill has reread all five of the books, and today at Cycleguy’s Spin he’s posted a summary of each and an overall review. A writer can’t ask for a greater kindness and encouragement than that. You can read his review here.

Books I’m Not Recommending for Christmas

Once again, I’m not recommending books for Christmas. This goes back a long, long time, when I learned that, if people know you’re a reader, they will shower you with books as gifts for birthdays and Christmas. Unfortunately, it was usually books the giver liked, without thinking too much about the recipient.  

That’s not to say I don’t really like books. Or that certain books have made me wildly enthusiastic. I discovered that this blog (and my page at Dancing Priest) is a good way to describe books I like. If I read a book and don’t like it, I don’t review it.

 

What follows is a list of the books I truly enjoyed this year.

 

Classics

 

I surprised myself when I tallied up the classic books I read this year. Some of them surprised me; they weren’t what I remembered them to be. But it’s hard to go wrong with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson; Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott; The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson; John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benet; Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry; and The Wonderful Visit by H.G. Wells.

 

Fiction

 

Just when you think contemporary literary fiction is going down the drain, you read books like Small Things Like Theseby Claire Keegan and Eugene Vodolazkin’s Solovyuv and Larionov and A History of the Island. And Robert Hudson’s The Beautiful Madness of Martin Bonham is simply stunning.

 

History

 

I’m still reading a lot (A LOT) about the Civil War. If We Are Striking for Pennsylvania, Volume 1 and Volume 2 focus on the runup to the Battle of Gettysburg. Man of Fire by Derek Maxfield succinctly explains the personality of William Tecumseh Sherman. And Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era by Frances Clark and Rebecca Jo Plant tell a fascinating story: how 10 percent of both the Union and Confederate armies were comprised of boys under the age of 15.

 

For non-Civil War history, my favorite was England in the Age of Dickens 1812-1870 by Jeremy Black. 

 

Poetry

 

I read some really fine poetry this year. When you start a year with The Family Book of Martyrs by Benjamin Myers and finish it with Under the Pearl Moon by Rick Maxson, you know it was a good year. In between were Meet Me at the Lighthouse by Dana Gioia; Stairwell by James Sale; Skyscrape by John Sibley Williams; and Mining the Bright Birds by Jody Collins.

 

Mysteries

 

When people wonder why I read mysteries (a lot of mysteries), I tell them that T.S. Eliot was a famous mystery reader, too. My favorites this year tended to cluster around authors: the Hillary Green series by Faith Martin; the Arnold Landon series by Roy Lewis; the Inishowen mysteries by Andrea Carter; the York mysteries of H.L. Marsay; the Louise Blackwell mysteries by Matt Brolly; the Munro & West mysteries by Pete Brassett; and the Lord Edgington mysteries by Benedict Brown.

 

Literary Criticism

 

Two titles were special standouts for me this year: Mythic Realms by Bradley Birzer and Belligerent Muse: Five Northern Writers and How They Shaped Our Understanding of the Civil War by Stephen Cushman. 

 

News Media

 

Newspaperwoman of the Ozarks: The Life and Times of Lucile Morris Upton by Susan Croce Kelly describes a journalism I recognize, even if it was the first half of the 20^th century (back when reporters used to report news). 

 

Faith

 

Luke Davis had two books aimed at younger (teen) readers – Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism and Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward. Ben Palpant’s Letters from the Mountain, Letters to Doctors by Earle Carpenter, and Monastery Mornings by Michael Patrick O’Brien. Of special note is The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living by Leslie Busatrd.

 

Memoir

 

High marks to Brian Miller for his Kayaking with Lambs. It's about farming, and a lot more.

 

Top photograph by Valentin Antonini via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Monday Readings

 

A Great Historian’s Inner History – Jeff Reimer at The Bulwark on Journeys of the Mind by Peter Brown.

 

Remembering with Christmas Cards – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian.

 

The Legacy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Every Day Poems: Community Mandalas + New Poetry Club Invitation -- Tweetspeak Poetry.

Jealousy

After I Samuel 18:6-9 

The king hears the songs,

the promises sung

to celebrate victory,

and he hears the words

tilt toward the hero,

not the king. The people

saw the victory, 

the people paid tribute

to the hero of the victory,

the one who swept beyond 

the fear and won a challenge,

a triumph with a slingshot

and stone. The favor

of the Lord had come 

to rest upon the head

 of the slinger of stones.

And the king heard,

and the king watched,

and the king waited.

 

Photograph by Marco Lastella via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Advent in Oklahoma – Benjamin Myers at Front Porch Republic.

 

Gleichschtung – David Warren at Essays in Idleness.

 

While you are waiting: a sermon on a reading from 2 Peter 3 – Dan King at Bibledude. 

Saturday Good Reads - Dec. 9, 2023

I’m taking a free online course right now on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Taught by Dwight Lindley, professor of English at Hillsdale College (yes, there are a few colleges left where English departments teach literature), it’s six lectures about the novel, the author, the literary and social contexts, and a lot more. I’ve reread the short novel, and I’m always surprised at what I do and don’t remember, and how I get the original book confused with the movie versions. Writer and poet Megan Willome has a poetry series going this month on the book; last year, she published (with TS Poetry Press) an edition of the Dickens classic. I read it an enjoyed it; the edition I just finished is a facsimile of the original, published by the Charles Dickens Museum in London. 

You wonder what you would do in a similar situation. Via The Free Press, a 70-year-old man describes what he didwhen his kibbutz was attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7. 

 

Christmas has had a rather curious mystery, writes Scott Hubbard at Desiring God. It’s been celebrated, canceled, transformed, and secularized, but its meaning still prevails. And Robb Brunnasky at The Cripplegate says that Christmas fulfills three of God’s promises.

 

More Good Reads

 

Writing and Literature

 

Who Can Repair the World? – Nadya Williams at Plough on the novels of Eugene Vodolazkin.

 

The Forgotten Giant of Yiddish Fiction – Adam Kirsch at The New Yorker.

 

The Great Books of the Great War – David Hein at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

The Anti-Poetry of John Milton – David Anderson at The Hedgehog Review on Heaven, Hell and Paradise Lost by Ed Simon.

 

(Nobel laureate) Jon Fosse says he would have stopped writing 40 years ago if he had listed to critics – Ella Creamer at The Guardian.

 

Life and Culture

 

Not a Nothingburger: My Statement to Congress on Censorship – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

One Good Day: Part 1 – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian.

 

Languages – Etgar Keren at Alphabet Soup.

 

On Finding Common Ground – Jillian Kramer at Kent State Magazine.

 

CRT, Genocide, and the Importance of Christian Universities – Jesse Johnson at The Cripplegate.

 

Poetry

 

Time’s Winged Chariot Hurrying Near – Douglas Murray at The Free Press on “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell.

 

Horror – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Miller.

 

News Media

 

Does the Media Hate Israel? – Russ Roberts at Listening to the Sirens.

 

Jordan Peterson and the Condescension of Times Columnists – Ethan Green at The Critic Magazine.

 

Faith

 

Cooperating Under Persecution – Paul Platinga at 9Marks.

 

The Long, Forgotten Reformation in France: A Brief History of the Huguenots – Stepehn M. Davis at Desiring God. 

 

Don’t Let All the Conspiracies Be Evil – Seth Lewis.

 

American Stuff 

 

Why Tea? Events Leading Up to the Boston Tea Party – Roy Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

British Stuff

 

George Cruikshank’s Christmas in London – Spitalfields Life. 

 

It is Well with My Soul – Brentwood Academy Singers.

Painting: Reader, oil on canvas (1906) by Brunner František Dvořák (1862-1927).

A friend

After I Samuel 18:1-5 

He hears the words

spoken to his father,

simple words that

identify, and he is

so struck by what

he hears that his soul

knits to the speaker’s.

They become as one,

not two. They make

a covenant, a pledge,

a promise of friendship

and faithfulness with

each other. He gives

him his robe, he gives

him his armor, he gives

him his sword and bow

and belt. The son 

of the king turned

from his father

to his friend.

 

Photograph by Mohammad Mardani via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Abraham and the Binding of Isaac” and “A Far, Far Better Thing” – poems by Brian Yapko at The Society of Classical Poets.

 

Archangel Explains – Poem by Pamela Mordecai at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Tribes, Trolls, and the Power of Technology – Jason Thacker.

 

The Good Riddle, poem by G.K. Chesterton – Malcolm Guite.

 

Ghosts Come and Go – three poems by Kerry O’Connor at Skylover. 

Finding Poetry: An Interview with Poet Rick Maxson -- Tweetspeak Poetry.

"The Christmas Bell Mystery" by Benedict Brown

It starts with a chance meeting on a train, shortly before Christmas. Christopher Prentiss is returning home from visiting friends at Oxford. He discovers he’s sharing a first-class compartment with only one other person, a beautiful young woman dressed in green who is crying. Over the course of only a few minutes, she explains her tears: someone in her family is trying to kill her grandfather. She leaves the train shortly after; all Christopher knows is her first name, Holly, and that her grandfather is a lord. 

Christopher, somewhat smitten, tells his grandfather, Lord Edgington and the retired superintendent of Scotland Yard, when he arrives home. Independently, they work out who the girl’s grandfather is. And on Christmas Eve, Christopher, his grandfather, Christopher’s parent, Daisy the dog, and a flock of servants pile into cars and make their way to the girl’s home.

 

Benedict Brown

The girl’s grandfather is thrilled to death to see them; he knows who Lord Edgington is, and he wants him to find out who is trying to murder him. And just about everyone in the family has a motive, just like everyone in the family has a motive in keeping certain things to themselves. 

 

A murder does indeed happen on Christmas Eve, followed by a second murder. And nothing and no one will be what they appears to be, including the girl Christopher met on the train.

 

The Christmas Bell Mystery is the 12^th Lord Edgington mystery by British author Benedict Bell. Set in the 1920s (No. 12 being set in 1927), the well-researched series includes considerable detail and background bout the period. The Lord Edgington stories may be more aimed at a teen audience, but it’s equally enjoyable for adults.

 

Brown has also developed the character of Christopher over the series. From a schoolboy to now a young man, he is learning how to solve crimes under the tutelage of his grandfather. And with each story, he’s contributing more and more to the solution.

 

Related:

 

Murder at the Spring Ball by Benedict Brown.

 

A Body at a Boarding School by Benedict Brown.

 

The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall by Benedict Brown.

 

 Death on a Summer’s Day by Benedict Brown.

 

The Tangled Treasure Trail by Benedict Brown.

 

The Curious Case of the Templeton-Swifts by Benedict Brown.

 

The Crimes of Clearwell Castle by Benedict Brown.

 

The Snows of Weston Moor by Benedict Brown.

 

What the Vicar Saw by Benedict Brown.

 

Blood on the Banisters by Benedict Brown.

 

A Killer in the Wings by Benedict Brown.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Burdekin’s London Nights – Spitalfields Life.

 

Poet Laura: The Gifts That Darkness Brings – Michelle Rinaldi Ortega at Tweetspeak Poetry.