Your eyes sparkled. And there was playfulnessIn your smile that veiled your age,Softening the hard years with its warm caress. And oh, that accent—that Louisiana drawl—It dripped like summer-morning dewIn fields long in grass before harvest fall. You reached out when you spoke, with . . . . Continue Reading »
(for Jake, 1989-2005) The briar draws a perfect bead of bloodto tender flesh as my dog pulls his headfrom tangled vines and brittle winter thorns.He shakes and wags but otherwise remainsunfazed by such intrusions. He is quickto note the next small heap of leaves, to checkthe air, the ground, . . . . Continue Reading »
Clive James—literary and film critic, poet, memoirist, travel writer, novelist, and cultural critic—died on November 24, 2019. Continue Reading »
In Love Among the Ruins, Evelyn Waugh examines how secular culture shelters us from ultimate realities. Continue Reading »
In 2011, I reviewed what was then Adam Zagajewski’s recent collection, Unseen Hand. In it, the poet, then in his mid-sixties, turned toward themes of life and death, loss and preservation. My review was laudatory. After its publication, a friend passed it along to Zagajewski, who on his . . . . Continue Reading »
Harold Bloom, who died in October at age eighty-nine, was The Last Great American Literary Critic. The Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, he wrote best sellers, appeared on talk shows, and collected honorary doctorates like lint. Bloom championed the Western Canon against its critics, . . . . Continue Reading »
This gold and paint on board, the fillet in her hair—I see resemblance, yes, a slantways glimpse of her Though she is gone away—it was not made from life,For no one is so blithe to pain, as if a laugh Were trembling on her lips, as if the fur like grassAlong the dragon’s jaw were just . . . . Continue Reading »
I chose a bench where I could read AugustineAs one may do beside construction sites.Late February, sunny, bitter, windy.I settled down to read,and sometimes I would look acrossto watch the crew at work—the heavy blockshoisted into their places by the cranes,while men took care to guide each to . . . . Continue Reading »
The Christmas angel in the window,a headless, legless mutilation,stands propped by a steel rod. She’s encased in tulle’s graceof white netting, goose feathers,and golden papier-mâché wings. Spray painted mannequin, hersilver skin will never knowthe feel of flesh. We can imagine how she fell . . . . Continue Reading »
After Jacob of Serug Blessed are you, O Maiden; blest The fruit which dwells within your womb,Beloved in that holy rest Whose secret comes to sacred bloom.And blessed is this virgin birth Which shall uproot sin from the earth. Who grants this . . . . Continue Reading »
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