Deep Down Things
Nicodemus, Doug Weaver
Pentecost 2012 issue.
On confessional poetry
When it comes down to it, it would seem, whether one is a confessional poet or not does not matter. It’s a false dichotomy, after all. Any poet truly interested in writing good poetry cannot completely ignore the self, and also cannot focus too narrowly on the self.
Friday Links
with DT & Collegium: Dying Well to Live Well; Fr. Michael Rennier & poet Anna Key; Joshua Hren: In Search of Ordinary Time; John-Paul Heil: The Field is the World; J.C. Scharl in Ekstasis: “Salt”; Julia Yost on Austen’s Darkness
Is it work?
“When I write, I am a woman alive. It is the most exasperating activity of my week, many layers more demanding than my hardest work day. It may go well or poorly. No matter.
It is not drudgery but sacrament, not duty but liturgy.”
Friday Links
with Eric Cyr & Joshua Hren, James K.A. Smith & Christopher Beha, John-Paul Heil on Katy Carl’s Fragile Objects, Tamara Nicholl-Smith on Dana Gioia, Patrick Kurp on Louis MacNeice
Lust - the deadly sin of lesser desire
C. S. Lewis admitted to being addicted to lust as an undergraduate yet argued that “you might as well offer a mutton chop to a man who is dying of thirst as offer sexual pleasure to the desire I am speaking of.”
Friday Links
with Natalie Morrill, Cynthia Haven, John Wilson & Prufrock, Ekstasis & Maura Harrison
The serpent’s mouth
Eve, exegesis, and the violence of drama
Friday Links
with Joan Bauer, Ploughcast E.66 with Paul Kingsnorth, Steve Donoghue, Phil Davignon, Roseanne Sullivan, & Maryann Corbett
Heaven is other people
On Sartre’s “Look,” and taking in the existence of other people.
Friday Links
with John Wilson in Comment, Micah Mattix in The Washington Examiner, E.J. Hutchinson in Ad Fontes, From the Archives: Jess Sweeney and Lee Nowell-Wilson
Looking for the Vita Nuova
Dante used the Vita Nuova to create a persona who’d reach his full potential within the allegorical journey starting in the dark woods of a depressed middle age and winding upwards from hell to purgatory to heaven. He played a literary long game, enticing the reader to roll her eyes and think, “Get a grip,” as he roiled words around his attraction to Beatrice.
Friday Links
with James Matthew Wilson, Sir James MacMillan, Benedict XVI Institute, Ryan Ruby on A.E. Stallings, Dr. Timothy McDonnell, and Mary Grace Mangano
Volunteers for Blessed Stanley
A volunteer docent describes the festivities surrounding the dedication of a magnificent shrine honoring our first American-born Catholic martyr, Fr. Stanley Francis Rother.
Friday Links
with Cynthia Haven, Dana Gioia, Micah Mattix, Sally Thomas, Randy Boyagoda, Ryan Wilson, & Haley Stewart
Friday Links
with Nathan Beacom, Jacques Maritain Prize winners, Makoto Fujimura, Davin Heckman, Sarah Horgan, and the UST Summer Reading Series
Winners of the 2022 Jacques Maritain Prize for Nonfiction!
Our Winners of the 2022 Jacques Maritain Prize for Nonfiction!
Seeking Emily
Emily Dickinson’s house and herbarium were formative in shaping her poetry.
Friday Links
with Peter Vertacnik, Joshua Hren, Joseph Pearce, Fare Forward, Christina Hsu, Eleanor Parker
The Sacred Heart Art Competition
Despite its venerable history, few (if any) artistic depictions of the Sacred Heart could be counted among the great works that exist within the treasury of Catholic sacred art. Some of the most widespread images present sentimentalized portraits of a Jesus with doe eyes, Pantene hair, and what appears to be rouge on his cheeks, which are at least as likely to discourage devotion as to promote it.
On the closing of Spencer Brewery
Western culture seems to have a unique attachment to its institutions not solely as a link to its ancestors and its past, but because it sees the future potential in the nascent creations of its present.