To understand this poem, you don’t need biography. Your own personal understanding of the loss of innocence and the pain of mortality serve just as well as Thomas’s disastrous attempts at adulting.
Poetry
Posted inPoetry
Our Epiphany
Because they left, they could arrive.
Because they searched, they could find.
Because they wandered, they discovered.
Posted inIdeas
My forty years of friendship with Thomas Merton
Can you be friends with a person who never knew you even existed? If the answer to these questions is yes, then I am friends with Thomas Merton.
Posted inPoetry
Poetry review: Lyric wonder, again and again
In this year’s poetry roundup, some of the poets whose collections we discuss are Catholic, some are not. But regardless of their religious commitments, wonder shows up in these poets’ work again and again.
Posted inBooks
Review: A new twist on a classic text
In their compelling new translation of the “Aeneid,” Scott McGill and Susannah Wright offer a dynamic, poignant and thought-provoking take on this classic poem.
Posted inFaith in Focus
How St. Ignatius’ Examen has shaped my poetry
As a poet, I often use the examen to remind myself to be fully present to what I’m experiencing, and to let those moments ferment and mature.
Posted inPoetry
Digital Vespers
In blue-lit rooms we bow our heads,Not to pray, but to scroll through feedsOf endless information streams—Where once were rosaries, now screensMark time in electronic beads. Each notification’s gentle pingEchoes like a distant chapel bell,While algorithms track our pathsLike ancient monks who kept their mathIn books where sacred stories dwell. Our fingers trace these glass-faced […]
Posted inFaith, The Good Word
We’re all playing make-believe—until we become ‘perfect in Christ’
A Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Father Terrance Klein
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
T. S. Eliot can be intimidating. You should still read his poem ‘Marina.’
Whenever I teach a seminar on T. S. Eliot’s work, I spend the first day of class on ‘Marina.’