Willard Spiegelman’s probing biography, ‘Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt,’ describes how she rose to meteoric heights in the poetry world relatively late in life.
Books
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‘A court with many lords and few ladies’: Mary Ann Glendon on her experiences of sexism in the Vatican
‘In the Courts of Three Popes’ gives us Mary Ann Glendon’s journey from Vatican outsider to insider and provides a captivating frame for her examination of the Vatican’s intertwined grandeur and dysfunction.
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‘Dante’ and ‘Desire’: 2 poetry collections confront modern crises in ancient style
Micheal O’Siadhail’s ‘Desire’ and Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s ‘Dear Dante’ are collections designed and erected meticulously in an ancient style that an avid reader is unlikely to see in much contemporary poetry.
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Tearing down idols: William Cavanaugh’s theology is a must-read for the modern West
In ‘The Uses of Idolatry,’ William Cavanaugh begins to write us a new story through which we might better understand ourselves and our times.
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Review: St. Augustine in dialogue with the 21st century
In her new book, ‘(R)evolutionary Hope: A Spirituality of Encounter and Engagement in an Evolving World,’ Kathleen Bonnette has brought St. Augustine’s philosophy into dialogue with 21st-century reality in ways that would impress even modern mindfulness gurus and internet pundits.
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Review: What we’re talking about when we talk about ‘Western Civilization’
In ‘The West,’ Naoíse Mac Sweeney tackles the history of the idea of the West through 14 portraits of both famous (Herodotus and Gladstone) and lesser-known historical figures (Phillis Wheatley and Tullia d’Aragona).
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Review: Judith Butler and the seismic shift in how we understand gender
In ‘Who’s Afraid of Gender?,’ Judith Butler contends that the contemporary backlash to “gender” is an attempt to recapture the transforming power structure and return to the (days when it was simple to use gender to organize power in the world.
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Review: Theology and sexual trauma
In ‘Incarnating Grace: A Theology of Healing From Sexual Trauma,’ Julia Feder is not only concerned with rejecting dangerous theological projects that have misled (and mistreated) survivors; she is also keen to plumb the depths of the Christian tradition more positively, for resources that offer meaning, courage and hope.
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What Pope Francis and Ivan Illich prioritize in common: Anti-clericalism, the Global South and the cry of the poor
Ivan Illich was a “radically orthodox” monsignor who remained tradition-minded his entire life. With Pope Francis, his hour may have finally arrived.
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The genius of James Joyce: Sin, guilt and the redemptive power of laughter
For James Joyce, humanity’s faulty condition “is happy because faults, errors, mistakes and misunderstandings” are the birth of comedy, writes Gabrielle Carey in a new biography.