Arts & CultureBooks
As soon as I began to read the very first of these poems by John Hennessy ldquo Signing the Kills rdquo I had to get out a map of the New Jersey shore to find where the Rahway River emerges across from Staten Island and along the Arthur Kill Then I needed the dictionary to inform me that ldqu
Poetry
I have just finished reading about 1,000 poems submitted for America’s annual Foley poetry contest. Garrison Keillor, of “Prairie Home Companion,” says he read 2,000 poems on the topic of spring to pick 15 for his radio show on April Fool’s weekend. Wearying as that is, we both seem to have enjoyed and been touched by the contact with so many lives and inner worlds and imaginations, to say nothing of personal losses and gains.
Culture
The contemporary poet Franz Wright expresses a sense of human life as a brief hiatus between an immense before and after. The cold and dark was Wright’s environment for decades of his life, starting from age eight, when divorce took his much-admired father, the poet James Wright, out of the ho
Of Many Things
As poetry editor for America, I had occasion recently to view the Rev. John P. McNamee’s new book of poems, Donegal Suite (Dufour Editions, Chester Springs, Pa.). Father McNamee has been an inner-city priest for over 30 years in Philadelphia. His memoir of his time at Saint Malachy parish, ent
Arts & CultureBooks
This fine new collection by the distinguished poet Jack Gilbert looks back on the pleasures of many years with what he calls ldquo a tough happiness rdquo ldquo The Garden rdquo Gilbert rsquo s life has been an odyssey taking off from his native Pittsburgh which developed in him ldquo a ta
Arts & CultureBooks
The award-winning poetry of Louise Gl ck former poet laureate of the United States is like the fiction of Henry James the more you reread it the more it entrances yet the more elusive it proves There are 17 poems in this slim volume a handful of them are multipart Thematically and in many ot
Arts & CultureBooks
An anthology of poems is usually a guaranteed pleasure After all a judicious editor is spreading out his or her favorites which is bound to yield the reader a handful of authentic finds The judicious editor in this case is Peggy Rosenthal teacher and author of The Poet rsquo s Jesus Oxford Uni
Arts & CultureBooks
In this second collection by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Mary Oliver containing 42 new poems the contents run in reverse chronological order the most recent ones first just the way a curriculum vitae starts with the latest accomplishments Publishers must fear a flagging of int
Arts & CultureBooks
Erin Noteboom born in Iowa is now a Canadian writer whose two recent books illustrate a classic division of poetry into the genres of narrative and lyric Seal up the Thunder derives its title from the Book of Revelation ldquo Seal up what the thunder has said and do not write it down rdquo 10
Faith in Focus
In the catholic understanding, a saint is somebody who is all-out for God, full of faith, hope and love. Such a person, decidedly, was the Chilean Jesuit Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga. Hurtado, born in 1901, was four years old when his father died, leaving his mother saddled with heavy debts and forced t