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Obituary for a Stranger
I wrote this poem about a year ago, just before Thanksgiving. It was inspired by the news that a pilot of a small multi-engine aircraft had taken off from the airport where my…
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The Way of Ignorance
In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. (T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”) So reads the passage from which Wendell…
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Tyrannical Consistency
“Its not just absolute power that the founders sought to guard against,” Mr. Obama writes. “Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth — the…
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The Memory of Old Jack
Andy is aware as always that he approaches a past much older than his own, that he cannot remember. But it is a past that, listening to Old Jack’s and his grandparents’ talk,…
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That Hideous Strength
The Hideous Strength holds all this Earth in its fist to squeeze as it wishes. But for their one mistake, there would be no hope left. If of their own evil will they…
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America at War
I discovered this book on the new books shelf in the children’s department at our local library. It’s a collection of poems compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Stephen Alcorn. To…
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Celebrate the Author: Gene Zion
Recognize this guy? He’s a white dog with black spots who likes everything except getting a bath. So begins the adventure of Gene Zion’s Harry the Dirty Dog(1956), one of the handful of…
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Revisiting ‘Wise Blood’
My task, which I am trying to achieve, is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see.…
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Writing about books: 25 prompts
I’ve been trying to brainstorm some writing prompts to help me engage with my reading without falling into ruts or formulas. In fact, I think I’m going to do away with “book reviews” altogether, and…
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To be Told: Thoughts on “co-authorship”
Everyone has a story. Put another way, everyone’s life is a story. But most people don’t know how to read their life in a way that reveals their story… It is the force…