James Matthew Wilson

If T. S. Eliot were our exact contemporary, he would, as a critic of literature and culture, find much of his labor in need of being done again. Or, rather, he would see it continued in the remarkable, growing achievement found in the essays of Adam Kirsch. In Kirsch’s new collection, Rocket and . . . . Continue Reading »

The swift perched, tweeting like a petty tyrant,     Ruffling the feathers of self-love and power, And dropped his siftings on a fire hydrant . . . . Continue Reading »

VI. Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus He stopped a moment, when her eyesMet his and grieved to recognize The mark of suffering in his face. With a slow hand, she drew her veil,Revealed herself, ashamed and pale, As if awaiting his embrace. . . . . Continue Reading »

XI. Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross For boys who pull the wings off beetlesOr prick their sisters’ backs with needles,     They spread his hand to take the . . . . Continue Reading »

Ascension Thursday: gone again. My usual panic every year Sets in as the Easter season ends; I’d hoped to reconcile everything, To feel, just once, grace tremble near, In a resurrected, fiery ring. But dry distraction settles in, And with a crow’s beak pecks my breast With hungers and regrets. . . . . Continue Reading »

The evergreens haunt the vineyard’s margin, encircling the bare Truck-and-backhoe mangled hill from whose dry crest I stare Across the lines of planted vines, in early spring; their dry And lightening bark like chicken feet clutching at the sky. The gravel spread about their husks reflects in . . . . Continue Reading »