Poetry
-
A couple of years ago I found myself with a strong and persistent urge to get to know Rilke's Duino Elegies, one of the landmarks of German poetry and of modern poetry in general. I suppose the impulse had been there in a mild way for many years, but I don't know of anything in particular
-
Douglas Murray, in his weekly poetry column at The Free Press, pays tribute to the most famous poem of Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress." (I was told long ago that his name is pronounced "marVELL," rhyming with "bell.") I should say "deservedly famous." The poem is a standard anthology piece, and until yesterday I don't
-
The Free Press, the new online news site founded by New York Times escapee Bari Weiss, has a weekly feature in which the English writer Douglas Murray offers one of his favorite poems. It's called "Things Worth Remembering," which, if I remember the original announcement correctly, means that these are poems he liked enough to memorize.
-
I read this book twice last year–twice because I like it so much–and have been meaning to write about it at least since the last reading, which was probably early last fall sometime, which is to say four or five months ago. But I kept putting it off. I knew that one reason for my
-
A train of thought that began with my noticing that in a few days it will be December eventually carried me to these lines from "The Raven": Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak DecemberAnd each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor… I hadn't read the poem in I don't
-
Kyle Smith of National Review thinks so. I half-agree. I don't think I've heard it more than half a dozen times, and always on a car radio. But I do remember the first time, because "Ain't that America" jumped out at me as a perfect expression of amused and unillusioned affection: "Yeah, it's a crazy
-
Or, as we commoners ought to keep in mind, Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland. I suppose that if we were to address her we would need to use some honorific of the "your ladyship" sort. But that won't be necessary, as she died in 1639. I only know of her because the June issue of Magnificat had
-
I find Kevin Williamson to be the most consistently interesting writer at National Review these days. That's not necessarily entirely a good thing, because when I say "interesting" I also mean "entertaining," and often that entertainment involves scathing language about someone. In principle I do not approve of scathing language about persons and try to
-
…treat it as a sort of caution. The man made few concessions to congregations. You can always count on his tunes to veer off from the predictable. We sang, or tried to sing, "Hail Thee, Festival Day" at Mass this morning (I know, it's really an Easter hymn, but it's reasonably appropriate for Pentecost, too).
-
EPIPHANY POEM The red kingCame to a great water. He said,Here the journey ends.No keel or skipper on this shore. The yellow kingHalted under a hill. He said,Turn the camels round.Beyond, ice summits only. The black kingKnocked on a city gate. He said,All roads stop here.These are gravestones, no inn. The three kingsMet under a
Light On Dark Water 