This is not Poetry Friday, but this poem has meant a lot to me in the last few years as I hit my introspective late-summer state in preparation for the busyness and joy of the fall and winter season. It's by Linford Detweiler, again.

(By the way, if you're not familiar with Over the Rhine, the band that Detweiler and his wife Karin Bergquist formed over twenty years ago, you can stream their entire most recent studio album, The Trumpet Child, for free at their website. Their music touches the soul deep down.)

I am beginning to write my life story
On blank sheets of paper
The one that I write everyday
Whether or not I pick up a pen
The days: pages
The nights: illustrations
My mouth: dialogue
The years: chapters

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It is our business, as readers of literature, to know what we like. It is our business, as Christians, as well as readers of literature, to know what we ought to like. It is our business as honest men not to assume that whatever we like is what we ought to like; and it is our business as honest Christians not to assume that we do like what we ought to like. And the last thing I would wish for would be the existence of two literatures, one for Christian consumption and the other for the pagan world.

Well, it's the middle of August, and I need a couple weeks' worth of relaxing wherever I can before I start new jobs, a new semester, and new projects. So, Poetry Friday is taking a break as well (if you're savvy, you might have noticed that it didn't happen last weekend, either).

But we'll be back in September!

It's been a hot summer, but the last few days in New York - unseasonably cool - have me remembering how wonderful a New York autumn really is. Cool weather, sunshine, crisp air, vibrant trees in all the parks; autumn in New York is magical.

There's a lot of changes in my life this fall as well. I'm leaving my job and will be working with these folks and these folks (which means that Christy and I will be co-workers!).  I'll be editing a soon-to-be-announced web publication. I'll be writing movie reviews for Christianity Today and Paste, and I'll be taking two classes in my graduate program. I'll be traveling for work and preparing for my very first speaking engagement.

This isn't strictly shape poetry, but the shape of the lines mirrors the movement of the words. Enjoy.

# 46

And every poem and every picture
a sensation in the eye and heart
Something that jolts you awake
from the rapt sleep of living
in a flash of pure epiphany
where all stands still
in a diamond light
transfixed
revealed
for what it truly is
in all its mystery
So a bird is an animal
flown into a tree
singing inscrutable melodies
As a lover stands transparen
Screened against the sun
Smiling darkly in the blinding light

An amusing - and possibly thought-provoking - image.

 We Bring Democracy To The Fish

It is unacceptable that fish prey on each other.
For their comfort and safety, we will liberate them
into fishfarms with secure, durable boundaries
that exclude predators. Our care will provide
for their liberty, health, happiness, and nutrition.
Of course all creatures need to feel useful.
At maturity the fish will discover their purposes.

I'll be honest and say that I chose this solely for the amazing imagery of "God's unshaven face".

The Stones at Callinish, Isle of Lewis

A boarded-up hotel beside
a fishing pier, a pub. Above them both,
a church crouched on a hill. Whoever brought
Christ to this desolate coast did it
with sword and fire, and it's not clear today
whether it took, or whether the slow seep
of centuries, the long winter nights,
would ever let anything be that wasn't
as sullen as the hill. The village
is that way, too. When you step outside,
there it is, the universe, all of it,
the glare of it pure, God's unshaven face
so close your skin rasps. Whoever raised
the stones did a good job of vanishing, too,
though the longer I stand here, the more
it seems it was deeper into the genes
they went, not just into the air.

I'm burdened with lots of work for my summer graduate classes and a number of tight article deadlines, which is why I've been largely absent these last few weeks. So, I'm recycling an old blog entry from August of 2006 that will hopefully be useful, especially to those who are still "Undiscovered"!

I don’t claim to be a brilliant writer - or even a completely grammatical one, which should be abundantly obvious from this humble blog - but I do a fair amount of editing, and I’m admittedly rougher on other people’s work than my own. Here are my top ten stylistic tips for aspiring writers, many of which are scavenged from Strunk & White.

Wendell Berry wrote my favorite poem; he also wrote this one.

How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything

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Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and a poet. His poetry, a precursor to free verse, has been set to music on several occasions, and books have been written about his life, most recently Exiles, by Ron Hansen. Here's one of his more famous poems - Eugene Peterson has named one of his books after the third-to-last stanza.

By the way, Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans! I'm celebrating in the nation's capital today. 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

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