And you pray
for help, one day at a time, sweet Jesus, as the mantra goes.
Posted inPoetry
Paul Mariani
Paul Mariani, poet and biographer, is a former poetry editor at America and University Professor of English Emeritus at Boston College.
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
Joy of My Youth
To God, who gives joy to my youth. Say it! Say it now…
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
That Early-Eastering Crocus
Lonely, cold, but stubborn, it had somehow managed to rise
up from the half-frozen, slowly thawing soil.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
How St. John Baptist de La Salle brought education to millions of poor kids like me
Who was this brilliant, saintly priest who founded the Christian Brothers? Perhaps now, on the 300th anniversary of his death, it is time for those of us who have benefited so richly from our educations to remember who he was.
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
What Happened Then
Strange meeting this, the holes there
in his hands and feet and heart.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The truth-telling poems of Frank Bidart
Frank Bidart tells us he came the closest to finding himself in his own poetry—and even then, not really.
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
Hornets’ Nest
“I really feel I can touch you even in this darkness when I pray.” —War correspondent James Foley (1973—2014) from his last message to his family “Man Jack the man is, just” Gerard Manley Hopkins Recovered now enough to scrub the deck, which turned dun brown with insidious dirt and […]
Posted inArts & Culture, Poetry
John Ashbery: The existential loneliness of a brilliant poet
What stays with me in reading Ashbery is the sense of existential loneliness beneath the linguistic play and multiple voices.