When I met the soundtrack of Hamilton, the massively popular Broadway musical that has taken the world by storm, I was astonished. I listened to borrowed CD’s on my commute to work at Messiah College where I teach academic writing, poetry, and creative writing. Never mind what the day held, I hungrily attended to these […]
How “Hamilton” Is Teaching Us to Love Poetry Again Read More »
One of the talks I will be giving in July in Charleston at the Circe National Conference is about Jonathan Swift’s critique of Modernity. His insights into the problems caused by the modern world are profound and surprisingly relevant even three hundred years later. In a very simplified nutshell: Swift saw that the modern world
A Few Thoughts about Music, Story, and the Death of Poetry inspired by Jonathan Swift Read More »
I’ve been reading Larry Benson’s (famed editor of the Riverside Chaucer) 1965 book, Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain in the Green Knight in preparation for my online intensive class on Sir Gawain. What I love about Benson’s work is how he roots the entire thing in the medieval tradition and helps us to read
Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Read More »
I was recently talking with a new friend of mine about art and tradition and the role of the poet—like I do—and he recommended to me an essay that had influenced his understanding of all of those things, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1921) by TS Eliot. I’ve been a longtime admirer of TS Eliot
Tradition and the Individual Talent: Or, TS Eliot Shares My Love of Dead Poets Read More »
We all know that reading aloud to our children is important but, like any habit or ritual, it’s hard to do well (or consistently). Here’s some advice to help you cultivate your reading skills and develop a longterm habit.
7 Tips for Reading Aloud to Your Children (Well) Read More »
On Wordsworth, Augustine, and stopping reading to read well
How to Read a Brook: Some Notes on Creation-Literacy Read More »
Beowulf, like The Odyssey, opens with a hidden main character. Even though he is the protagonist and the title of the poem, our hero doesn’t show up until line 297, and even then he isn’t named until line 345. Instead the poet carefully sets the stage for the arrival of Beowulf by telling us a
Have you ever encountered a paragraph that itself was worth the price of the book? I did while reading Dr. Scott F. Crider’s The Office of Assertion. Here it is, linguaphiles (for free!): In the metaphysics of grammar, each part of speech concerns one of three conditions—being, becoming, or relation: Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives concern
Someone recently asked me what it means to read poetry classically. As I’ve been mulling over this question, I’ve been reading Andrew Louth’s book Discerning the Mystery which explores the legacy of the Enlightenment, in particular its definition of truth, and the legitimacy of the humanities’ unique way of apprehending it. It raises questions such
Why reading is a conversation, an encounter, just as thoroughly as a coffee date or dinner table.
