Six Christian Poetry Anthologies Worth Reading
When a particular mode of production, or of concern, reaches certain thresholds, or when public taste shifts palpably enough, artifacts attesting to it arise to delineate its contours. Often this happens around the turn of the century, or when a major figure dies
I won’t go so far as to call it a “golden age” as yet—such claims have a way of returning to embarrass overly-confident prognosticators—but we are living in a very healthy and interesting time for poetry in general, and for poetry by persons of faith, specifically. Whereas once the faith-based artist faced a wasteland of editors hostile to any hint of that kind of thing, we now enjoy a fulsome, thriving scene replete with journals of the highest quality, conferences, both recurring and individual that create occasions to gather, online communities, churches that double as reading venues, intelligent readers with an apparently boundless appetite for verse, and entire presses dedicated to its production.
Enter the anthologists.
When a particular mode of production, or of concern, reaches certain thresholds, or when public taste shifts palpably enough, artifacts attesting to it arise to delineate its contours. Often this happens around the turn of the century, or when a major figure dies. Poetry anthologies not only summarize the zeitgeist, but become lasting works of art in themselves: think of W.H. Auden’s Book of Light Verse or Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times. Sometimes, another organizational principle prevails. Copper Canyon has just released a luminous anthology on the occasion of the press’ 50th anniversary. FSG has published one celebrating 75 years of their influential poetry list.
If they don’t always include the very best of what’s being done, they do serve as handy introductions to a scene, a movement, a press, a time.
What follows is a gathering of just some of the faith-based poetry anthologies assembled in recent years. These are not the sorts of books one reads sequentially. I recommend dipping in wherever you like, and finding something that catches your ear, snags you by the heart. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite and track down their collections hereafter. If you don’t like any of it, remember that anthologies are never completely representative, and always reflect a certain editor’s taste. Your mileage may vary.
Read around. Click wildly. Go to readings. Get recs.
Or subscribe to a good poetry newsletter, if you happen know of one.
The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems ed. Ryken
This collection is big on the classics, the sort of poems that English Majors already know, but it’s a handsome book and features page long explanations about why these particular poems are so moving and powerful, for those who could use some help with interpretation.
Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry ed. Hopler and Johnson
A massive collection that begins with early Christian mystics and goes right through to authors still living. Includes the heavies, but also many lesser-known poems. Importantly, this anthology makes space for authors who are not themselves religious, who nevertheless write prayerfully or Biblically-informed poetry.
To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry ed. Horniachek
Attending especially to non-English poetry in translation, this collection testifies to the broad witness of the church across the world from the earliest records to about 1800.
Christian Poetry in America Since 1940 ed. Mattix and Thomas
A survey of (mostly) contemporary and late-Modernist voices by professing Christians in the U.S. They didn’t include my work (humph) but it’s still a great who’s who.
See how narrow and interesting these assemblies can be? This one is not just English, and contemporary, but features poems only from the last 25 years as published in a single magazine.
The Turning Aside: The Kingdom Poets Book of Contemporary Christian Poetry ed. Martin
A very fine collection of modern Christian poetry with a few bigger names—Richard Wilbur, R.S. Thomas—thrown in. Most of them from poets on the Poeima Series, who (full-disclosure) published my first book. Want to know what’s going on now? I’d start here.
—-
And this is not all! There are new anthologies featuring specifically Catholic poems, and others featuring vaguely-spiritual or inspiring poems, but this should be enough to get you started.
Wherever you are in your poetry-reading journey, note that, as with all journeys, there’s more to be seen.
An Evening over Shared Affection: Poetry Books Not to Miss
Eventually, we’d get around to the question “have you read anything good recently?” And that's when our cartridge needles would settle into our respective grooves and things would really start swinging.
It has always seemed to me that a high and holy camaraderie accrues to people who love the same things. When I go to concerts, for instance, I feel a kinship with everyone else in the hushed (or by turns raucous) venue because we’re all of us leaning in the same direction, breathing at the same intervals. It’s part of why I like praying in liturgical settings, and why I like meeting other book-people when I give poetry readings: this is us, I think, these are my people. But the feeling carries for me even when we’re not physically-gathered, even when we haven’t met–we’re still leaning in; there’s still an us here–and sometimes I like imagine the talks we’d have could we stuff ourselves into some country pub with world enough, and time.
Let’s say, for instance, find ourselves in the Queen's Arms, C.S. Lewis’ other favorite pub, the Bird and Baby being closed for repairs, or over at Two Kick in Seattle where I usually hang out, and maybe you see me scribbling away, or I see you reading The Mockingbird, or Image, or some other publication that signals an informed and artistically-interested fellow Christian, or anyway it comes out that I’m writing poems and maybe you are too and we get talking. Maybe you’re fresh from Hutchmoot or the Glen or one of these new Inkwell evenings that Ekstasis is hosting and are all fired up about the life of the mind, the soul of the world, the community-building potential of the arts. Eventually, we’d get around to the question “have you read anything good recently?” And that's when our cartridge needles would settle into our respective grooves and things would really start swinging. When it’s my turn, I’d spin something like the following.
The books I’m buzzing about, feasting on still, having recently read them, are Mark Jarman’s Zeno’s Eternity and Paul Willis’ Somewhere to Follow. Laura Reece Hogan’s little explosions of sense and sound I still find staggering. If someone doesn’t see why poetry is so compelling, I might start them with her Butterfly Nebulae. Or maybe with Scott Cairns who has two (!) new books out just now, one of them that’s built of the great conversation: Correspondence with My Greeks.
For those with a more intellectual bent, the sorts of folks who appreciate poems by the late Geoffrey Hill, or, you know, who liked The Elegies, will find treasure in Bruce Beasley, whose books, All Soul Parts Returned, or the new Prayershreads, are as erudite and rewarding as collections as anything I’ve read. But they’re hard: he’s pushing at the edges of the form and at the edges of the known, grounded by a linguistic biblicism that’s humbling to observe.
Maybe we’ve moved over to a booth at this point, and maybe—while we’re imagining anyway— maybe at this pub, you can still fire up a pipe, and Malcolm Guite sidles over to tell us about his new Arthuriad-in-progress and Paul Pastor (great smokers, both) about his forthcoming The Locust Years.
We move past the recent and into the future; after all, half the fun of a vacation, or a film even is seeing the trailer and anticipating. What else is coming you’re excited about?
You all know the Poiema series, right? It’s kind of a who’s who for poets of faith; they have this new poet Luke Harvey whose book is out just this month, Let's Call it Home. I’ve seen about half poems in it and they’re marvelous: stop you in your tracks while also strengthening your faith; these are poems for people who love the Bible and love good verse, love being surprised. And they’ve just had a win with J.C. Scharl’s Ponds, that fine, glowing flight of lyric intention. I’ve just heard they signed another new poet, Cameron Brooks who writes this austere, muscular poetry like Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album meets Robert Haas at has most sinewy. It’ll be a while before it comes out, I think, but I’m going to have a whole fun year, and I'm looking forward to it.
A song comes on the jukebox that one of us recognizes. We all stop to listen for a few bars to this country, jazzy skittering by a band called, endearingly I think, Mr. And Mrs. Garret Soucy. “Did you know this singer’s a poet too?” which I guess makes sense, the whole bardic tradition. His first book Between the Joints and the Marrow should be out any minute. Hot!
There are some books I've read ahead of time, having been asked to endorse them, and I have an especial fondness for them. I was present at their birthday. I can still hear us all singing over A Testament of Witness by David Lyle Jeffrey.
Some of us follow these things like others follow the NBA draft—have you seen Wiseblood Books’ new signings? It’s like a hostile takeover of talent. I might just buy the whole of next year’s roster—collect ‘em all!— but I’m especially jazzed for Seth Wieck’s book.
The evening winds on; we start speculating. Have you guys seen Michael Dickman's book, Husbandry, about being a father? It's so tender. Do we think he's a believer? Or what about Dan Ratelle’s Painting Over the Growth Chart, which has the best cover art ever? I think of them as place-poems, but there’s a something-more there, too…
Well. We can all see it's getting time to spill out into the night. We have reading to get to and work to do ourselves, but before we do, let's raise a glass for Brett Foster, that beautiful believer who died young, right before his playful, intelligent book Extravagant Rescues came out.
"For Brett!"
"For all the poets we've lost, and those we’re still finding!"
Cheers.
Music/ 2023
My annual round up of music.
I almost didn’t make a post here, since I listened to very little new music this year, but I always tell my students that they can use their failures (of imagination, of nerve, of research) as fodder for writing, so I’m trying to do the same. In the absence of anything satisfying or staying that came out recently, I listened to these older records instead, some of them fairly obsessively.
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Dulcinea (1994)
Apart from their radio singles in the 90’s I never got into Toad. My brother did a bit, and I always kind of thought of them as one of his bands (we overlapped significantly, but each had a couple that were just ours). I don’t remember why I turned this on early in 2023, but I did and was caught immediately. I’ve played in every couple of weeks since January. It’s rare that I missed a significant album from the 90’s, having had my finger directly on the musical pulse of that time, but I’m glad to be making up for this one now.
The Violet Burning
S/T (1996)
Here’s another one I sort-of listened to in the 90’s, but I think I never had a copy of the CD, and this was during the time when such things were prohibitive. They were certainly part of my scene, but I never quite caught on. This band is edgy like crazy, and dark, but also huge; not anthemic, but storm-like. Had I paid more attention then, this would’ve been one of my favorite records ever. Now, I hear it tinged with a bit of regret.
Bon Voyage
The Right Amount (2002)
I’m a sucker for Bon Voyage, as I am generally for Martin brothers’ projects (hello, Pony Express!) and things involving Andy Prickett, but I didn’t get to this one, having figured their debut was a sort-of one-off side project. A few years ago, I played that self-titled all year, and played it for my wife who couldn’t believe it was from 20 years ago. This one is sweeter somehow, less grungy, but it still swings. Why do I always picture Quinten Tarantino vibes when this is on? It’s period music, but what period? Noir?
John Van Deusen
Every Power Wide Awake (2017)
This was just me going into the back-catalog of one of my favorite artists of last year, and it’s the most recent thing I cared about musically this year. I can listen to these Origami records all the time, with their huge range of musical styles and challenging lyrics. It helps that he’s become my daughter’s favorite singer too, our soundtrack to drives to school.
Miss Angie
100 Million Eyeballs (1997)
How did I come upon this record in the Year of Our Lord 2023? I vaguely recall seeing the cover before; someone in college must have had it, back when it was a normal thing to walk into someone’s dorm room and start perusing their CD collection. I played it on a whim, likely looking for something else the kids would like to hear on the way to school, something bubble-gum and bouncy and not gross. Nailed it! Miss Angie sounds a bit like Hole, a bit like Garbage, but most like Verruca Salt. It’s a very strange combination though, and an intentional one, I think: the lyrics are rather theologically-inflected (none of this Plumb/Sarah Marsden casual association with “heaven,” no “is this about a boy or about Jesus?” nonsense). Some songs are just straight verses from John the Revelator, but—here’s were it gets awkward—they’re delivered in this syrupy, playful sexuality that’s…umm…awesome. I mean, her voice and mode of delivery are the sexiest thing since Mazzy Star. Super Hot church-lady music with great mixing and punchy guitars. That’s what I’m listening to.
…and that’s pretty much it. Not too many records and none of them from the current year. I have a list like this for every year since 1986 and this is the first time that’s the case. I don’t know if it’s because the move away from albums and toward singles is now more or less complete, or if I have just now reached that age whereat people start feeling music isn’t being made for them—why for instance there was that whole generation who listened to 50’s music in the 70’s, or to 70’s music in the 90’s. Maybe 2024 will be a great one for music and I’ll get right back on the train, but even if I am waylaid at the station for now, it has been good to spend the interim with these records for company.
Visiting Whidbey Island
SPU’s Camp Casey is one of my favorite places in the whole world.
SPU’s Camp Casey
Pretty soon, the SPU MFA will have its first post-pandemic residency at Camp Casey on Whidbey Island, which means a band of ink-stained scribblers is about to approach that blessed ground for the first time. Visiting new places can be tricky, so I thought I, who have had the good fortune to spend a good bit of time there, might offer some tips, that your joy may be complete. Here then are some things you won’t want to miss.
Madrona Supply
This cute little gift shop is right off the ferry, and I mean you’ll disembark, drive for less than one minute, and see this place on your right. Part of you will want to press on, having just made landfall; another part of you will say I’ll hit it on the way back off the island, wanting to get to Casey as quickly as possible, but you won't! This is the chance to stop and see it; on the way out, you’ll be too concerned about making the ferry time to stop in. That would be a shame because there’s some really unique local crafts here.
Looking out at Admiralty Bay
Langley
Langley is the other adorable beachfront town on Whidbey and is worth a stop. Don’t take the direct route from the ferry, but save the turn till you hit Bayview Road. That will bring you past Whidbey Doughnuts (which also makes good breakfast sandwiches) near a whole complex of buildings that are fun and worth exploring including one dedicated to Shakespeare paraphernalia. But this still isn’t Langley; we’re just on the way! The shops in the town proper keep changing, and it’ll be obvious what to see when you get there, but make sure to check out the Whale Museum and Langley Kitchen which has the best food on the island. Think colorful organic salads, high-end soups and sandwiches, and a good wine selection.
On the Road
Next you’ll probably make your way to Camp Casey, but on the way you might be tempted to stop at Whidbey Ice Cream (amazing concoctions), which is right by Rocket Taco (the best of that genre in WA), and Whidbey Distillery (award-winning blackberry liquors, etc). All of these would be profitable diversions.
Sebastian on the beach at Casey
Coupeville
This is probably a trip best left for after you’ve gotten to Casey and dropped off your things. It’s the closest town to where we’ll be staying and it features a lovely bookstore, a solid eatery Front Street Grill (weirdly-great burgers here and clam chowder) and plenty of cute gift shops. Insider tip: you may be tempted to buy memorabilia from the gift shop at the end of the pier. Do not do this. It’s cheaply-made overseas and only exists for tricking tourists. The shops along the high-street, or at the land-side of the pier are legit. One place you may miss unless you are looking for it: Red Hen Bakery. The gem of the island, for me. I love everything they do. No place to sit down, so prepare for a picnic. Bonus: the toy shop also has a great vintage-style candy selection.
Port Townsend
One of the best things about Whidbey is how easy it is to get to Port Townsend, which is my favorite place in Washington state. This is what I would do on your free day. There’s a walk-on ferry right near campus and it drops you off right in the action. Once you get there, it’s obvious where to go: beautiful shops, eateries, movie theaters, abound. Make sure to stop in at William James Booksellers, my pick for best bookshop in the state. Also, make sure your walk along Water Street takes you all the way down to the Wooden Boat Foundation where you can see restorations taking place and get a good coffee and nautical gifts besides. Those prepared to go a little further afield may wish to visit the beautiful publishing house Copper Canyon Press, nearby.
Wild deer at the barracks
On the Way Out
Lastly, those who have time and the transport option may wish to drive off the island rather than ferry back if only to stop by Deception Pass. The state park is immense and beautiful, with a nice display from the Conservation Corps, but even just stopping roadside and walking across the bridge is worth it. Hang onto your hat!
I hope you all enjoy your time at Casey, but make sure to enjoy the journey as well. See you soon!
Music/ 2022
The Year of our Lord 2022 in music.
Ronnie Martin
From the Womb of the Morning
I always wanted to like Joy Electric, Martin’s other band, more than I actually did, but this side project just hit me upside the head. I love its tunefulness, its bonkers production, the obscure biblicism of its lyrics. I even kind of love how much my daughter complains that I play it too much. Bonus: Martin also wrote the Advent devotional my family is using this year. What this guy does with syntactic stress is as fun and innovative as what he does with the KJV.
Mr. And Mrs. Garrett Soucy
From the River to the Ends of the Earth
This soulful LP has a jazz delivery over early Bon Iver instrumentation, which is a recipe for success in my book. I guess it’s more mumble-core, or what we used to call lo-fi, than anything else. Very much my scene. I think I love best how it sounds completely believable as a 90’s record, or a 70’s. If you told me it was from the 1930’s, I wouldn’t doubt it, apart from the production quality.
Dogleg
Melee
Probably my most played record this year, they’re a bit like Japandroids and maybe, just a bit like Driver Eight. Gawd, I miss music sounding like this. I loved coming of age in the 1990’s.
Touché Amore
Lament
The only possible competitor for “most played,” this is a good bit harder rock than I have recently rolled, but the energy! The delivery! Reminds me of old At the Drive-In. Honestly, this is the record I think about most, wishing I were listening to it when I’m doing something else. I started spinning this last year, so that feeling has lasted for some 14 months now.
Wolves at the Gate
Eulogies
Music I put on while lifting weights in the garage, and perfect for that. Inventive and theologically-rich.
Wilco
Ode to Joy
Sneaky Wilco, making a sad record about joy. Like all Wilco records, it’s a little air-headed, often sweet, and beautifully mixed.
Mark Kozalek and Jimmy la Valle
Perils from the Sea
Kozalek records often feature in my best of lists, but I’ve been off the wagon for a few years. This one is really here on the strength of a couple of songs; when will I ever forget hearing “You Missed my Heart”?
TobyMac
Life After Death
This isn’t so much a record as a collection of singles, but how this guy keeps dropping hits is anyone’s guess. So many perfect pop songs here. It’s just been nominated for Dove and Grammy awards, so I’m not alone in thinking so. It also features “21 years,” written about the death of his son, which is vicariously my kids’ first experience of death. We cry as a family over it.
John Van Deusen
Marathon Daze
I interviewed John with Joel Hartse for Image this year and started listening to his albums in earnest. I listened across all four, but most to this new one, which my daughter knows well enough to put on when she wants to cheer me up.
Caedmon’s Call
S/T
This is a 25th anniversary re-recording of the band’s influential first record, which had not been available for streaming since the label that released it collapsed. I prefer the original version in most cases, but it is exciting to hear the songs fresh and it was a marker of the year to anticipate this release after the Kickstarter campaign and as the band released the tracks one at a time.
Peabod
Growing Up pt. 2
Kids have a tolerance for consuming the same thing that I can hardly fathom except that I remember doing it too. How many times did I see Monty Python? Sebastian eats only pb+j sandwiches and that’s all he cares to try, for instance. This record, which, let me say, I really admire, is one of those things for them. They literally ask to play it every single day, and sometimes just put it on a loop. They never tire of it. So when I think about 2022, this will always be the soundtrack.
A Few from England
I brought my camera this time, so I could share with you some of the highlights.
This summer it was my joy and duty to take undergraduates around England under the auspices of the C.S. Lewis Global Seminar through SPU. We spent about 5 days in Oxford, 5 in London, and 5 in Cambridge, seeing the relevant bits and reading through fiction and essays. Along the way, we learned from Kim Gilnett, long of The Kilns, Lewis’ home, Michael Ward, author of Planet Narnia, among others, Adrian Wood, sexton of Lewis’ parish Holy Trinity, Aidan Mackay, chair of the G.K. Chesterton society, and from the good people at the Gillian Lynne Theater’s production of The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The students were game, conversations rich, and sites as rewarding as they could be. A blessed time, in short. I brought my camera this time, so I could share with you some of the highlights.
Trollope on the Critical Class
In the opening chapters of Anthony Trollope’s novel The Way We Live Now, Lady Carbury, sends the following letter
In the opening chapters of Anthony Trollope’s novel The Way We Live Now, Lady Carbury, who, it is important to note, is not known as an exemplar of literary taste, sends the following letter to a periodical editor:
Dear Mr Alf,
Do tell me who wrote the review on Fitzgerald Barker's last poem. Only I know you won't. I remember nothing done so well. I should think the poor wretch will hardly hold his head up again before the autumn. But it was fully deserved. I have no patience with the pretensions of would-be poets who contrive by toadying and underground influences to get their volumes placed on every drawing-room table. I know no one to whom the world has been so good-natured in this way as to Fitzgerald Barker, but I have heard of no one who has extended the good nature to the length of reading his poetry.
I share it here because I am convinced that this is his commentary on the critical controversy surrounding Philip James Bailey’s Festus, which lasted from roughly 1840-1874 as new editions were printed that required comment.
Here are a few reasons.
Bailey was known as “Festus Bailey” for most of his life, since the work was first offered anonymously, so Trollope is likely signaling a coincidence with the F-B of “Fitzgerald Barker.”
With the rest of the Spasmodics, Bailey was routinely attacked by anonymous critics, such as wrote for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Review. Authors often raged to find out what critic had made such sometimes slanderous claims, but had no way of finding out.
The specificity of the the phrase “on every drawing room table,” I think is unique to criticism of Festus. In any case, I’ve never encountered it elsewhere. The reviewer who used it IRL means it as a compliment: that Bailey’s work was so popular, people read it who didn’t usually read poetry; it was everywhere, but in this exchange Carbury is using its ubiquity as a negative.
Finally, since Festus is an epic, there were probably a great many people who bought the book and didn’t quite finish it. There were even cribbed versions floating around that gave the most important extracts of Festus so that non-readers could still roam confidently with the cultured class, so this is probably a comment on that.
I don’t know where it will go from here. I just picked up the book in a charity shop in Oxford for something to read, but already I’m feeling the bite of Trollope’s satire against figures either he or Carbury fails to appreciate.
The Ride Home
A gathering of my radio appearances on WORD-FM with John and Kathy.
It’s been a great joy to appear on a radio program called The Ride Home with John and Kathy on WORD-FM over the last few years: to get to know these wonderful hosts and to read some poems, both my own and others’. In this post, I’ll try to aggregate some of those appearances for archival and sentimental purposes.
Pop Goes the Culture
What is it about combining lyrics and instrumentation that reduces so the use-by date?
Whenever I hear bands like America or Jefferson Airplane, I marvel that so many people once took such great comfort in these things that most now consider rather silly. This keeps on happening: a movie will define a generation only to be laughed at by the next. Is this a necessary function of popular culture?
I complained to my friend Alan Jacobs about the bad timing of my releasing a new book of poems just when all the bookstores in America closed down and he replied “thankfully, poetry is news that stays news, so people will eventually find it”. News that stays news.
That phrase has haunted me since he said it. Because I am—aren't you?—not only uninterested, but basically disgusted by yesterday's news, to say nothing of last weeks'. We throw out as garbage what we we're very eager for just hours before. By contrast, how much consolation, how much joy I have had in Constantine Cavafy's poems from a century ago!
I am trying to think about why this should be or why it might matter. The poet Percy Shelley often thought about the eternality, or lack thereof, of artistic productions. He admired painting, but worried that its shelf life was necessarily short due to the degradation of its materials. Sculpture he found the more lasting, but was still upset by the way later curators felt free to alter it, adding fig leafs, or whole limbs to replace missing ones. Poetry he saw as eternal, not, I think, only because it is his own chosen medium, but because of the thing I'm talking about here. A Shakespeare sonnet that I read now is not similar to, but identical to the one recited at the court of Elizabeth I. If the past is any indication of the future, we can be fairly certain that in another 100 years, or 500, the sonnets will endure and endure in precisely their same state, losing none of their affective power due to the half-life of certain molecules.
So, it seems, the problem isn't in the lyrics: either in the ideas or in their enunciation in sentences. But the problem also doesn't seem to be in the music. Duke Ellington's three-minute miracles are every bit as powerful today as they were nearly a century ago. Beethoven, though he likely sounds a little different, likewise. The work doesn't sound dated. We don't listen to it for nostalgic purposes but because we find it beautiful and useful in the present: as full of power as it ever might have been.
My question then is the following: what is it about combining lyrics and instrumentation that reduces so the use-by date? I suppose to engage it, you'd have to believe that it does. I can imagine some people arguing that The Beatles haven't really aged. They'd be wrong, and hilariously so, but I can imagine it. My sense is the that the Fab Four endure almost purely for nostalgic, and then for ideological reasons. Those of us who listen do so to remember certain times or feelings from our youth, or to sign up for the rebellious posture they advocate--down with religion! Your teachers are stupid! The government is evil! Whether one supports such rallying cries is irrelevant to the issue that that's a large part of the band's appeal. I can hear people saying Bob Dylan music is beyond time as well, but I don't think that's right either. There is nothing eternal or universal in that music. But given that you're a normal person, surely you'd have to admit--even if the music of your upbringing was great, like mine was, that it begins to show its age eventually. Some records I unashamedly love, even still from 30 years ago; others I can only love because I have decided to place their obvious emotional manipulations to one side, to look past their excesses in the same way I agree to look past their hair or attire.
Even if you don't agree completely with the way I've framed the question here, don't we think this odd? Poems last forever. Non-vocal music lasts a rather long time, sometimes centuries. But put them together and it starts looking not only threadbare, but comical, embarrassing, within a decade, if that. It doesn't seem to me self-evident why that should be the case and yet there are literally thousands of examples.
To further complcate matters, it seems also as if the breadth of appeal is inversely proportinate to the linear. So, Richard Marx reached across nearly the entire spectrum in the English-speaking world in the early 1990’s, but did so insanely briefly, only to be so cringeworthy as to be unlistenable, not long thereafter. I think there is more going on here than the sense of backlash, our corporate embarrassment over having loved something so much. It seems to me more like rose bushes that only have so much energy inbuilt. They can spend it on fragrance, or color or size or lasting-ness, but they must still choose somehow which.
Music/ 2021
My annual round-up of the music that shaped the year.
Strokes
The New Abnormal
This record came out at the tail end of 2020 and so I featured it on my year-in-review post, though I’d only been listening to it for a month or so by year’s end. It stayed with me (and with us: the whole family loves it) throughout this year too. My son Sebastian (4) has choreographed a dance to the song “Bad Decisions.” I think every Strokes record lands on a best-of list of mine somewhere (apart from that RCA one, yuck) because I think this band is tops. They won a Grammy for this one, right, for Album of the Year category? So apparently loads of people agree with me on this one.
Luxury
Health and Sport
Luxury is perhaps my single favorite band, ever, from any time period, the way The Beatles or U2 are for some people, so seeing this will surprise no one. It’s one of their missing albums, not present on streaming platforms and thus not present at all for most listeners. That meant for me having the great fun of committing to—paying for—a record I hadn’t heard a single note of, which really is fun, a kind of gambling. I mean, I did have the recommendation of Andy Prickett from the Parallel Love documentary to go on, which isn’t nothing. Also, earlier this year I was on a panel of “experts” making cases for which is the best Luxury album and Lee Bozeman asserted at the end that this was his favorite from their catalog. Happily, they’ve just issued a vinyl pressing. It’s a moody and dramatic record, triumphant somehow and experimental and perfect.
TobyMac
The Elements
This is Not a Test
I believe I am old enough now not to have to apologize for my liking Christian music. I always have, since those early Benny Hester, Leslie Phillips, Amy Grant, and Petra LP’s I spun as a precocious 6 year-old, ignoring the Mickey Mouse sing-a-long 77’s they’d bought me the plastic turntable for. It continued through high school and college and life thereafter: whatever else I was listening to, I always simultaneously treasured CCM. DC Talk’s records were deeply formative for me, but I fell off the train after Jesus Freak and left TobyMac’s solo work alone until I randomly played his demos CD last year for my kids when we were on a road trip. They were hooked. So was I. We’ve spent this year going through his catalog and these two new records were our most played music of 2021 by a huge margin. They ask for him all the time. I took everyone to see his concert (their first) at the fair (also their first). It’s a great gift to be able to share this with them, our whole family moving to music that moved me first when I was a teenager. I’m grateful both for his creative longevity and his witness.
Skillet
Victorious
I’ve always maintained that these lists are not necessarily what I think to be “the best” records of a given year—often they weren’t even released during the year in question—but the ones that defined the year for me. I loved and still love that first Skillet record but haven’t followed anything in-between. This one I only played because I turned my garage into a weight room during COVID and needed some testosterone-fueled workout music. I tried all kinds of playlists and punk bands, but nothing got my blood pumping so much as this one, so I played it at least once a week when I got out there. They’ve still got it though. “Terrify the Dark”? That song has me gasping for breath.
War on Drugs
I Don’t Live Here Anymore
War on Drugs last appeared on my 2014 list when I sunk deep in Lost in a Dream. I tried the next one, but couldn’t get into it, though many others revere it as a masterpiece. But this one had me from the first track, from the first few seconds of the first track. There’s just so much going on musically in this record. Each year, I send my dad a CD that I think he, audiophile, will appreciate. This year, it’ll be this one, an instant classic that achieves that status in part by not ignoring the classics.
Coda: I don’t usually have a runner-up category or anything like that, but this year, the two records I thought about most were Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud and Natalie Berman’s Mercy. I don’t know what to do with either of them, exactly, which is why I’m reluctant to place them on the list. I can develop relationships with some artists slowly and I wouldn’t be surprised to see either of these become essential for me, but it could just as easily go the other way and I never listen to either of them again. I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.
Literature and Faith
I love the course because it allows me to talk about my favorite things: poetry and Christianity. But also I love how much is possible under those headings.
At Seattle Pacific University, I teach a course called Literature and Faith for the English department with which I am free to do more or less whatever I like. I love the course because it allows me to talk about my favorite things: poetry and Christianity. But also I love how much is possible under those headings. I never teach the same class twice, so I’ll be mixing up the reading list and likely the course structure for next year’s iteration—maybe reading Dostoyevsky, Dillard, and Dante? Bailey and Milton on Devils? But this year I had the readings and lectures grouped around the various genres that I think Christians have contributed uniquely to, ones that wouldn’t exist, I think, apart from believers. For the curious, here’s what we read under those headings.
NB: most of these we read in excerpt. The idea is to give students a familiarity with these many works that they might see the diversity of authors and styles available under such a rubric and that they might build respectable reading lists.
NBII: We do read CS Lewis Screwtape Letters in its entirety; all poems come from Ryken’s Soul in Paraphrase (Crossway).
Introduction and Method
C.S. Lewis, Experiment in Criticism
Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur”
St. Francis of Assisi, “Canticle of the Sun”
Gungor, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”
Hymnody
C. Phillips, The Hymnal
Charlotte Elliott, “Just as I Am”
Getty/Townsend, “In Christ Alone”
Bridges/Thring, “Crown Him with Many Crowns”
H.Lyte, “Abide with Me”
In-class screening of Amazing Grace (dir. Pollack, 2018)
John Newton,“Amazing Grace”
H. Constable, “O Gracious Shepherd”
Spiritual Realities
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, part 1
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, part 2
Dante trans. Mary Jo Bang
Dante trans. Clive James
Drehrer, How Dante Can Save Your Life
Sermons
F. Beuchner, “Magnificent Defeat”
P. J. Bailey, Festus
Anne Bradstreet, “Burning of our House”
Bp. Michael Curry “Royal Sermon”
Billy Graham "How to Live"
G. Herbert, “Redemption”
Allegory
Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
Lewis, Pilgrim’s Regress
Spenser, The Faerie Queen
Spenser “Most Glorious”
Donne, “Batter my Heart”
Spiritual Autobiography
James K.A. Smith, On the Road
Augustine, Confessions
E. McCaullie, Reading While Black
Milton, “When Faith and Love”
Blake, “And did Those Feet”
Devotionals
Elizabeth Elliot, Streams in Desert
Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage
Katherine Parr, Meditations
Herbert, “The Collar”
Donne, “Death be Not Proud”
Apologetics
Spufford, Unapologetic
Chesterton, Everlasting Man
Final Thoughts
Christina Rossetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter”
First Nations Version: Indigenous New Testament
Festus Endorsements
Philip James Bailey’s first poem was met with some rather excitable Victorian admirers.
“Here is a poem which will startle the critics throughout the kingdom, and give them pause before they venture to utter their opinions, so much there is of daring both in the conception and execution.”
“English literature has no example of daring equal to Festus.”
“There is matter enough in it to float a hundred volumes of the usual prosy poetry. It contains some of the most wonderful things I ever read.”
“In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which reveal the secret places where time is elaborating the marvels of nature, [Festus] stands alone. This book is a precious, even a sacred book….England has now only two poets that can be named near him.”
“There are passages of this work, figures of speech, images of tenderness and sublimity, thoughts of grandeur, expressions of fervor and reverence, alive with the very soul of poetry, instinct with celestial fire, strong, deep, intense—worthy of the masters of song.”
“There is no more enthusiastic admirer of Festus than myself.”
“What power! What fire of imagination, worth the stealing of Prometheus! A true poet indeed.”
“A most remarkable and magnificent production.”
“His place will be among the first, if not the first, of our native poets.”
Shakespeare on Salvation
What is evident about YHWH from at least as far back as the Abraham-Isaac story, is that He is perfectly comfortable disturbing the narrative from without.
What is evident about YHWH from at least as far back as the Abraham-Isaac story, is that He is perfectly comfortable disturbing the narrative from without. God’s last minute substitution of a ram for the son shows that there are rules to be followed, and an economy of sacrificial exchange by which mortals are expected to play, and even in some sense, by which the universe appears to be governed, but also that there is a god-term ready to disrupt the agreed upon rules of the game by obliterating the market itself.
The scriptures both Jewish and Christian show this again and again as the three in the fire are not burned, as the lion doesn’t eat Daniel, even the rules of physics are suspended as walls crumple from the pressure of trumpet blasts. If all these interventions prepare God’s people for one huge and unlikely substitution at Good Friday—just after the messiah disturbs the sacrifice exchange market within the narrative—it also invents a kind of theater. The world as we had been experiencing it with predictable rules and consequences for action is shown to be a kind of dumb show in which the divine can call curtain at any time, and in which he can interfere, introducing new characters and plot elements however nonsensical they may seem to the players already onstage, for the purposes of salvation.
Here is a theatrical device that Shakespeare adapts to his uses in several plays. While it can sometimes seem mawkish to a narratively sophisticated audience, the sorts that engross itself in hours of binged and packaged narrative content, he’s not only taking the short route to a happy ending, but saying something about the nature of reality: that God’s way is true. She was a boy all along! Portia wasn’t really dead! are just the sorts of ending for which his plays are sometimes criticized, but they are meant to be realistic rather than magical, if we count reality to be that higher framework within which what we take to be the real is enclosed.
The Getaway: A Wedding Memory
The getaway vehicle was going to be a Bentley, but we moved out wedding date over a few days and so he asked would a white Rolls Royce be alright with me? Yes, I assured him, a Rolls Royce would be fine.
In Seattle, to be a barista is to hold a kind of public office; it is to have "regulars" and to be responsible in no small part for people's experience of the neighborhood, and even thereby for the character of the city. If visitors say they found Seattlites surly and cold, they have probably visited certain coffee bars in Capital Hill; if "the people seemed friendly," they've probably been to Ballard.
These regulars develop a keen sense of attachment to their baristas, whether the figures in question are awarer of it or not, and often despite the fact that they've had no interaction beyond the professional. In some cases though, the morning chit chat elevates, and a kind of relationship develops featuring a deep sense of having been cared for on the part of the customer. Amber was one such figure in a well-loved independent coffee bar in the arts district of the city. Among her regulars were the director of the ballet, the owners of local theater companies, lighting designers, actors by the score, newspaper writers and businessmen--although, lets face it; this is Seattle: businesswomen--of every stripe, and many of them developed attachment to Amber for any number of reasons: her smile, her coffee making, her curiosity, of any number of other fine qualities to tell of which I am the picture of partiality.
The getaway vehicle was going to be a Bentley, but we moved out wedding date over a few days and so he asked would a white Rolls Royce be alright with me? Yes, I assured him, a Rolls Royce would be fine.
In Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Pip is the beneficiary of a mysterious guarantor on whose largess he lives well in London, with nowhere to put his thankfulness. It's a little how I felt, not having met the owner of Classic British Motorcars who was a regular at the coffeeshop where Amber tended bar and offered, as a wedding gift, to make his fleet available to us for transport from the reception. The tricky bit was that he wanted to surprise her with the gift, but needed certain particulars--time and venue not least--which would have given away the ruse if asked.
We organized the pickup through a third party and I had another transit surprise to store up for the wedding which was already threatening to crumple my reserve. "How are we getting from the reception to the hotel, or wherever," she asked; I hadn't told her where we'd be spending the wedding night either. "Don't worry; I'm on it," I was pleased to report.
On the day of, I placed my transportation minister in charge, himself a racing instructor at a motorway and the most qualified car-guy I know, of coordinating with the driver, the owner, and the reception venue. As with everything that week, the reception seemed to fly right by, and just when things seemed to get going, quests began saying their goodbyes. Amber wanted to stay. So did I. But soon, it became clear that if we hung around with our friends and our wine, we'd be the last people at the party, thus depriving the great majority of our guests of the occasion of seeing us off. They'd miss the lavender we collected and the getaway car and we the shower of blessings and a final farewell.
I tapped my man saying to call the company to get a car down here pronto, moving up the agreed deadline by a good two hours. They didn't have the Rolls available just now.
"Send whatever you've got."
When a vintage London taxi cab pulled up, a smile of deep satisfaction broke across my face and I was immediately glad for everything: that we were early and the Rolls busy. Suddenly that felt like ostentation. He hadn't had the kind of wedding were we pretended to be princelings, but rather a cooler, more local and charming affair. To ride off in a prince's consort would've jarred.
Inside, there were two glasses of champagne, a dish of strawberries, and an oriental rug on the floor. We ran out under a cascade of lavender and popping flashes into that little oasis which conducted us on a tour of the city we know so well. It's being Saturday night, the resellers were out in Belltown, waiting in line behind velvet ropes to enter posh clubs. We stood up through the sunroof waving as they cheered and Amber streamed her veil behind like a banner.
When I thought of Seattle from Germany, where we moved directly afterward, that's the ride I replayed: the city as I know it framed through those windows, the scent of lavender caught in my bride's hair, her tiny weight and the texture of her mod getaway dress, the strawberries, sweet champagne, and the newness the whole world seemed washed in.
photo by David Wittig
Visiting Seattle
My first few visits to Seattle, I didn’t go the right places.
Over at the SPU MFA program—the best writing program of its kind and not just because I teach in the poetry portion— we’re about to have our first residency on campus, having usually conducted them at Camp Casey on Whidbey Island. This will allow our writers to experience some of the cultural riches available in our fair city during the course of their program, rather than bypassing said cultural riches in quick exchange for the natural ones. But, I’d hate for anyone visiting from out-of-state, or from abroad, to put their foot wrong and so miss out on the big ones.
My first few visits to Seattle, I didn’t go the right places. I headed for the tall buildings thinking that’s where the action would be and found a hollow business core with nowhere to eat and nowhere to look but up. Since I am now a resident of this lovely place, here are some things I’d try to see while on oh, say, a ten-day visit which will be productive and full but will also feature some free time.
Note: there are many great ways to experience a city as complicated as this one. The following tips are meant for writers and artists visiting town who are staying in northern Queen Anne. Note 2: Seattle is a city of neighborhoods. You don’t go to see sites, particularly, but areas that are charming and funky and walkable. Get to a few of them and the riches will reveal themselves.
Upper Queen Anne
Atop the hill from SPU (take any of the buses on 3rd headed up) is a strip of businesses along Queen Anne Avenue. It’s pretty logical just to walk along finding cute places, but I’d be sure not to miss the following.
Eden Hill Provisions Big Max Burger (they changed the name. Same place though)
unbelievable burgers, shakes, fries and an adorable picnic area on Crockett street.
Blue Highway Games
this is a place to buy board games and puzzles and dice, but it’s super unique. They let you sit and play most of the games and the staff seems to know everything.
Mail Dispatch
as it sounds, this is where we ship packages, but there’s a good selection of gifts and clothing and wool socks.
Moonrise Bakery
recently opened bakery where everything is outstanding.
Queen Anne Book Co.
our local spot, run by an alumnus. Tell them you’re an SPU student for a discount.
Stuhlbergs
fancy gifts and cards and soaps and things.
Hilltop Alehouse
best beers on tap in the area, a nice back patio, and pub food that doesn’t need to be great but is anyway.
Fremont
Just across the blue bridge from where we are is a compact neighborhood full of great eateries and drinkeries. It’s easy to understand, all falling in likely lines surrounding the PCC (local, organic produce), but if you go, make sure to see these places.
Dusty Strings
a stringed instrument shop worth visiting even if you don’t play stringed instruments. They build guitars and harps right on the premises.
Theo Chocolates
the best chocolate in the city is made right across the canal from campus. Stop in for copious samples, or even a factory tour is you have time.
Fremont Used Books
a cozy little shop that has a good section of literary biographies in the basement and an upstairs reading nook that you can’t stand up in.
Simply Deserts
get a piece of cake. Trust me.
Aesop
a beautifully designed selection of personal care products . They usually have a copy of Paris Review or Poetry Northwest sitting around by the high-design chairs. Smell things. Wash your hands in their stone basin.
Fremont Antique Mall
tucked in the alleyway, this is a large and funky collection of kitch and LP’s and all the other ephemera from eras past.
Fremont Coffee House/ ETG
these places are opposite one another and both great. The former is an old house converted to a coffee shop; sit and linger on the broad front porch. The latter is a tiny closet that makes great biscuits and serves European-style espresso you drink in the courtyard nearby.
Mischief
my second-favorite whiskey maker in the Pacific Northwest with a chic interior for hanging out with a wee dram.
Ballard
Anyone who visits Seattle without spending a morning in Ballard is getting ripped off. I’d do this before seeing the Space Needle or Pike Place Market. A working-class neighborhood suddenly made good featuring the city’s best food and drink. On Sundays, they have a Farmer’s market that’s huge. Basically, you want to see everything on Leary Way and Ballard Ave, but especially don’t miss these.
Lucca
my favorite store anywhere. Writing papers and pencils, Italian aftershave, trinkets: this place is a whole argument for a certain kind of life.
Clover Toys
This shop used to be much more beautiful than it is now, but it is still well-stocked with toys and clothes you wouldn’t see elsewhere.
Ballard Locks
watch the ship traffic; see the Salmon jump if they’re running.
Filson
Local outdoor outfitters set-up to equip the hopeful on their way to the Yukon gold rush. Still around and still making gorgeous things.
Hot Cakes
Oh man, everything on their menu is incredible. A late-night desert spot. Try Butter-beer, if you’ve ever wondered.
Elsewhere in Town
Should you find yourselves wandering further afield, keep these spots in mind.
Elliot Bay Books
best bookstore in the city. Used to be the best in the country in their former location. Extremely well-curated. In a cool area where you’ll find many diversions.
Open Books
one of only two poetry-only bookstores in America. Heads up: they moved locations since you were last here.
Le Pichet
if you’re going to do the Pike Place Market thing, do yourself a favor and have a little something here while you’re in the area. A little bit of France downtown.
General Porpoise
the best doughnuts you’ve ever had. Two, maybe three locations now.
Citizen
if going to the Space Needle, this is the best food in the vicinity. Lots of outdoor seating and good coffee.
Central Library
a building worth seeing both from the inside and out.
There is much, much more, obviously, but this list should get the curious traveller started. Feel free to flag me down for more details or tips. And have a good trip.
Why I Smell So Good
As with other forms of beauty, I've been interested in the aesthetic of smells for most of my life.
First scents
A decade ago, a friend took me to a restaurant I couldn’t afford on Ile de la Cite in Paris where I tried le lapin and esgargo for the first time. That was the most gustatorily interesting day of my life so far, the flavors so alarming and satisfying. And if I had to say, my first visit to Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Rome was the most visually interesting day. I saw much that I knew, but also so much that was new--the odd textures of Tapies, a real Yves Klien--that my sensorium spun wildly trying to make sense of a world cast this way. But among these sensuous heights, most olfactorily interesting day I've had so far in my life was yesterday, when I went with my wife to select a new cologne.
As with other forms of beauty, I've been interested in the aesthetic of smells for most of my life. When I moved to my own room for the first time, eight years old, in the attic, the first thing I did was obtain a scented candle. I didn't have a desk, or even a chair to sit on, or a bed frame, but I could sit on the rug and appreciate the wonder of existence because it smelled nice. Ditto when I started making forts at ten years ole: I hardly played in them, but was terribly concerned about the structures' design and the experience of being in them. Once I spent the better part of a summer scrubbing the walls and ceiling (!) of a barn I wanted to convert to a fort, an idea I abandoned after I couldn't get the hay smell out.
Tingling
In high school, I followed colognes and what they meant, as do many at that age. Particularly, I was impressed at how certain scents bonded to certain chemistries. My friend Steve-Dave wore Drakkar Noir and it smelled like him. When I tried it, nothing. That first Hugo Boss scent I still associate with my friend Kelson. There to, on me, it smelled like I was flopping around in Kelson's huge shoes. I toyed around with the blockbuster scents then available, Cool Water, CK Be, that citrusy Tommy launched in 1995, but in college, I found one that was perfect.
There are dozens of fan pages dedicated to the now-obsolete Gucci Rush and mostly empty bottles go for a fortune on eBay, so I won't go on about its qualities, but for me, it was just right. The perfumer who designed that scent fo Gucci has since gone on to create so much that is valuable he needs no further elaboration: Rush was the first scent designed by Tom Ford as head of that house (or anyway, he worked with a team who later when on to make beautiful scents for Comme de Garcons, another favorite.) I ran out. They stopped making it. There was a persistent wale of mourning all up and down the left coast.
I thought about these things but never in a very rigorous or intentional way until I read an essay by Andre Aciman "On Lavender and Longing," and followed that up with this one about Britney Spears' perfume longevity. These and a story from my former pastor about how is grandfather always smelled a certain way and how he, wanting to give that experience to his kids, buys a new bottle of the same cologne every Father's Day made the search more urgent.
On my birthday this year, Mrs. Willett arranged for a babysitter to come during the day so she and I could go out and smell things. At Nordstrom, we found the right salesman immediately. Did he remember Rush? Did he have anything like it? So he spent the afternoon spraying little bits of paper with various attempts. We gave up finding a substitute Rush--one can't replicate a bygone scent any more than one can replicate a given day apparently-- but we did encounter many scents wonderful to behold.
Maison Francis Kurkdjian
Then I noticed that of all of the scents on offer, the finalists kept coming from the same house. Mind you, spatial organization, bottle shape and packaging, price, none of this affected those first decisions. They couldn't have. I was comparing spritzes on white business cards. But time and again the ones that made us both sigh and say "interestiiiing," rather than just "yum," came from Maison Francis Kurkdjian. I started to understand this perfumer's aesthetic, what things meant in these combinations, if it makes sense to use a term like that.
We chose one. Thrilled with my birthday gift of Grand Soir, I sought some more information about this Rodin. Turns out he made, and some 20 years ago as his first scent commission, the only other scent apart from Rush that I've truly loved: Jen-Paul Gautier's Le Male. What are the chances? I love that a person can have an aesthetic so varied, but consistent enough to appeal to the same reader, me, in this case, across decades. I love that--how do I say it?--we found each other again across a heady sea of competitors, that we didn't lose touch, or that he didn't lose his.
This post isn’t really about this scent or this house, so much as it is about consistency and serendipity, but if you’d like to learn more about these wonders, here’s a video from the team.
If you’re interested to follow more of what’s happening in the world of men’s fragrances, this is my favorite reviews website: What Men should Smell Like
Year in Review 2020
Amid so much that was bad, so many lives lost and also so much life—graduations missed and readings and concerts cancelled, careers stalled, businesses shuttered—there was, nevertheless this year much to rejoice.
Amid so much that was bad, so many lives lost and also so much life—graduations missed and readings and concerts cancelled, careers stalled, businesses shuttered—there was, nevertheless this year much to rejoice. As the poet G.M. Hopkins says, despite it all “there lives the dearest freshness deep down [in] things,” and I’ve found that to be so. This was, no contest, one of the worst years of my life (I know I am not alone in this) but curiously, when I lay it out here for the purposes of remembering all that happened during it, somehow—can I even say it?—one of, undoubtedly one of the best. Here are some highlights.
Work
This year, The Elegy Beta was published. It’s the best work I’ve ever done; I loved working with the production crew, I love the cover, the forward by Rilke scholar Mark S. Burrows, love the font they chose. This thing just kills. If nothing else had happened during the year, this would still be a memorable one for me, if only for this. It has been reviewed so far in EcoTheo, Rain Taxi, TS Poetry, and North American Anglican. And then, at year’s end, book ended up on best-of lists by writers I admire Aarik Danielsen, Brett McCracken, and Jessica Hooten Wilson. In addition to the book, I published 3 essays (including my Christmas one), 2 poems, 1 translation, and 1 book review.
Professionally, it was a year of big news too. Most amazingly, I was promoted to tenure-track in the English department at SPU. I taught my first college-level class in 2003, and have been adjuncting and contract-teaching since that time, so this is a welcome change. Meanwhile, we hired a new Provost, my department lost its Dean, and I gained an English colleague in our department’s new hire. Then, I taught the Literature and Faith class for the first time this year (see our reading list here) and offered a guest lecture in Dr. Moe’s whale-building class (watch the video here). Finally, while my cup was running over in gratitude, I was asked to be poetry mentor in the SPU MFA with all these fine people.
Acquisitions
We got a new car! Or, new to us anyway. I wish I’d gotten the stick, but seeing this cute little thing gives me a thrill every time I spy it. This was also the year that our family outgrew our camping tent and so traded up and the one where I finally found a wool blanket I like.
Family
We potty-trained the boy! Both kids learned to ride bikes! It’s such a joy to watch them feel the freedom they’ve earned.
We took a road trip down the coast in Summer—you can see some pictures here—about which I’ll remember most Canon Beach, the Dinosaurs, horse-riding at the Salladins, Westmont College, the dad who played “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd as a lullaby, hikes in Prescott, Ben’s graduation, and Bri’s not-prom.
Later in summer, we had a bad time camping at Larrabee, and took two good trips to Camp Casey, one in Summer and another at Thanksgiving. Also, we had, briefly, Tuxedo the wonder-pup and Puma the kitty.
Reading
The best books I read this year were these:
Anaphora by Scott Cairns
Charis in the World of Wonders by Marly Youmans
Dunce by Mary Ruefle
J.I. Packer: an Evangelical Life by Leland Ryken
Online Offerings
All the live shows being cancelled opened up opportunities to see some shows I otherwise might’ve missed. I’ll particularly remember my friend Damien Jurado’s Instagram live concerts, wherein he played back through his deep catalog, the SPU Sacred Sounds of Christmas special, the National Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, and the Luxury documentary and talk-back.
Listening
TobyMac The Lost Demos
I couldn’t get any music to stick this year. I don’t know if I just didn’t have the leisure time to put in, or if the releases were objectively worse, but my chief feeling regarding recorded music this year was disappointment, even though tons of bands I normally love released records. The only one that mattered most all year long was this, from yes, the lead singer of DC Talk. It’s my kids’ favorite record and, this year, it’s mine too.
Sandra McCracken Patient Kingdom
I love the production on this lady’s records. This is just how I think records should sound. Cheers to the recording engineers. I can’t really listen to any of her other records because we sing songs from all of them at my church, even the songs not meant for congregational singing, all the time. It’s always seemed to me somehow perverse to listen to worship music when one is not engaged in worship, but this new record, while deeply devotional, is just full of, you know, songs.
The Strokes The New Abnormal
I’m a sucker for The Strokes. I think their sense of swing and of song-craft is coequal with Sinatra’s.
Lee Bozeman Jubilee
This is a quiet little 4-song Christmas e.p. that’s so sad and so spare and still shining somehow: a fitting soundtrack to this bleak and God blessed time.
Watching
I didn’t see any movies of note this year (this is not unusual for me) but I saw two long-running TV shows that I found very moving and intelligent: The BBC’s Detectorists (thanks Overstreet for the recommendation) and The Great!, which is only the second television show I’ve ever wept over. Eh, make that the third; I recall being pretty broken up over the Family Ties series finale when I was 11.
Worship
Parish life at St. Ambrose continues to be a source of abiding joy. This year, I’ll recall (when could I ever forget?) having Eucharist on the back lawn while dog-walkers ambled by, recording worship songs with my wife for the at-home services—the first time I’ve played guitar seriously in a decade—the Bettis wedding (our church’s first!), the Henley wedding (outdoors and distanced and raucous fun), the Ramos baptism, Good Friday Stations of the Cross at the Anderson home, and the Easter egg hunt at Fr. Troy’s.
Neighborhood Nutcracker
Finally, this was the year when the Nutcracker Ballet was cancelled, along with everything else, and our daughter just couldn’t stand to lose one more thing, so we decided to make our own. December was entirely given over to planning, filming, and editing this project in which my wife tried to make a little magic for those who missed this holiday mainstay. She made the chocolate scene at our local chocolate factory, the Chinese Tea scene at an actual tea shop in Chinatown, and so on. The whole thing was luminous and joyful as all these dancers volunteered to make it come alive.
Phew. That’s a year. Joy to the world.
Happy 2021
A Biography, in Brief
It occurs to me that some people want more than the pithy, dust-jacket style biographies on offer on minimalist websites. We want to know about poets, our professors! Or at least I do.
It occurs to me that some people want more than the pithy, dust-jacket style biographies on offer on minimalist websites. We want to know about poets, our professors! Or at least I do. I loved learning about Donald Hall’s house repairs and sex habits in his wonderful Life-Work, for instance.
Here then, is TMI, as I think the kids are saying these days.
I was born in Phoenix, Arizona, I think, though maybe it was Scottsdale, and it may well have been a part of Scottsdale then categorized as Paradise Valley. I was there, obviously, but I wasn’t paying attention to such things as civic boundaries at the moment. I write about my feelings regarding these town in “Hot Wind” from Phases. My family went to People's Church, who helped take care of us, since my mother was so young. From there, we moved up and down the west: CA, OR, WA, and back to AZ. I moved schools 19 times (I counted once) before graduating high school.
Off then to Wheaton College, which, I have had occasion to mention elsewhere, was the best thing that happened to me. I had Leland Ryken, Alan Jacobs, Jeffrey Davis, Jill Peleaz Baumgaertner, and Jerry Root, among a great many others whom I count, some of them, as saints. Also—and I didn’t realize at the time what a wealth this was—the school introduced me to poetry readings. I saw Jeanne Murray Walker first, then Dana Gioia, then Li-Young Lee. What wealth! There is more to say about this time, and I have been saying it in draft which I may sometime share. Importantly, I went on Wheaton-in-England, studying at Oxford and stealing boats. I studied photography some as well.
Not knowing quite what to do thereafter, I went to Flagstaff to be near my brother, whom I had missed. We got a gig where we lived as sextons of a local church, which barely paid anything, but which gave us what was technically, though perhaps not legally, a place to live. Not having much else to do, and missing the life of the mind, I did an MA at Northern Arizona University. While in the public library, it became clear to me that I was to move to Seattle. I’ll have to tell you the story of how I knew another time.
Back in the Northwest, which I missed and longed for ever since leaving at 16, I went to UW where I got to study under the poets Richard Kenney and Linda Bierds for an MFA. Rick took me to Rome (travel pics here) and my aesthetic sense has never recovered.
I stayed at UW for a Ph.D., learning with Raimonda Modiano, Nicholas Halmi, and Charles LaPorte, the last of whom gave me the Spasmodics. Mid-dissertation, I went as Scholar-in-Residence to University of Tuebingen, where I began the poems that would become The Elegy Beta, and read some of them in the poet Holderlin’s house.
Just before that outing, I was married to the choreographer Amber Willett and we made the loveliest children! Here I am now teaching at Seattle Pacific, attending St. Ambrose Anglican, and praising the God from whom all this blessing has flowed.
Ways to Wait: more thoughts on Advent
I wanted to offer here a little more evidence for why I think we should consider Advent a time of joyous anticipation rather than one of solemnity, mostly for the unconvinced.
Just this week, North American Anglican published this essay of mine on the nature of Advent as suggested by the metaphors that govern it. It has received many fine responses from folks saying they resonate with the challenges and images there, and a little pushback as well, which is probably natural given the corrective nature of the essay. So, I wanted to offer here a little more evidence for why I think we should consider Advent a time of joyous anticipation rather than one of solemnity, mostly for the unconvinced.
One commentator, the good Rev. Ben Jefferies, noted:
This is an excellent proposal for how Advent should be inhabited, and very compelling, but it is unfair to claim that those who (like myself) treat Advent as a Lenten season are the innovators, when that is clearly the dominant motif for Advent up until the Reformation in all quarters, and in many beyond.
…to which I offer the following thoughts. First, this fellow clearly knows more about church history than I who am just a poor poet trying to think about how the human heart works and what might be best for it.
Second, as the liturgical resurgence tears across the globe, making converts and drawing people into the depths of church practice, most will encounter the negative Advent as a revision. Persons who have been Christians their whole lives will have their favorite season suddenly re-defined as not-joyous. Which is to say, there is an historical level here, but also a human one. And since we are talking about human practices within the span of an individual life —viz. “what we should do” and not “what has happened”—I think it’s fair to talk in person-scale.
But third, I don’t know why we’d need to go back to the Reformation for rhythmic templates. Times have changed rather drastically since then, obviously, so if the practice of a joyful, decorative Advent was the dominant practice in England in the nineteenth-century and in the early c20, as I think it was, and then the church started moving (back?) to a pre-Reformation practice, maybe sometime in the 1970’s I think I’d still call that latter group the innovators. We know from essays and novels from the likes of Alexander Smith, or Trollope, or Dickens clearly, that Advent was celebrated with the glittering joy and gusto I am recommending here, but that sometime between then and now, it was changed toward solemnity. I think that’s probably in response to the rise of Commercial Christmas, (which I take to be a 1950’s phenomenon). In any case, it is still a change, even if a change back.
Fourth, even if it was the dominant motif pre-Reformation, I think it was not the only one. One instance is the opening anecdote from Constantine. That was definitely pre-Reformation and was definitely a celebratory season leading up to Christmas. So we could say, originally, Advent was a street party for a coming king, and only later was morphed into a little Lent. Or we could get even more original than that: John the Baptizer fills the Issaic “Prepare ye the Way of the Lord.” And isn’t that what we do at Advent as I describe it here? The alternative is not to prepare the way, to side imaginatively with those intertestimental lonely hearts wondering how long they’ll wait for Messiah. So in another way of thinking about it, the ORIGINAL original Advent from Isaiah, through John, through Christ’s life, through Constantine was joyous and outward, then there is a period where I lose the thread, not being a scholar of such things, and pick it up again around Samuel Johnson and into the Romantic era, where it has, to my ear the exact same tenor: feasts and eager gratitude.
Or as another commentator glossed it:
I have been formed into a person who frankly gets more excited about weekly Seahawks games than high holy days. Let us be honest, after all! This does not mean my loyalties are more to NFL than the faith, but my rhythms are shaped that way. BUT, if we can learn from the "star" and the "pregnant", can we learn from the "game"? ADVENT=anticipation of this week's game against divisional opponent! I can't wait! CHRISTMAS= a nail-biter win! CHRISTMAS SEASON = Remember when Russell threw that pass to DK? And how did Lockett catch that pass? It's a miracle! I can't believe they won! Joyful anticipation / Experience / Reflection.
I think that’s exactly right.
I’ll turn comments on for this post if people would like to engage more here. I am very happy to be corrected here, and realize that there is an element of both in Advent, which is what makes it so wonderful. Also, I’m looking very forward to my library’s purchase of the new Oxford handbook of Christmas, which might clear some of this up for me.
In any case, happy (joyous!) preparations to you and yours!
Let Them Eat Cake: A Wedding Memory
I don’t know what happened to damage Amazing Mike’s sense of consistency—let’s sell incredible cakes from the ugliest storefront imaginable! Let’s have pretty cakes taste like cardboard and plain one’s taste like ecstasy!—but I’m glad it did.
photo by David Wittig, as always
Marie Antoinette is credited with having said “Let them eat cake” as the French peasants, her subjects, were begging for bread, and I’m inclined to agree, not with her luxuriant deafness to the real problems that led to the revolution, but with the dismissal, so long as the emphasis is placed on the right words: Let them eat cake. Just not me.
I’ve never cared for the stuff. Ice cream too. This is why, though, while I love parties, holidays, and general conviviality, birthday parties are something of a trial for me, as eventually someone will thrust a paper plate (my other least favorite thing in the world, apart from cars, and the foodstuffs here under discussion) into one’s hands, full of aerated sugars and the whimsical chemical spill we call “frosting,” expecting not only that we eat it all, and usually with a plastic fork, but that we sing about it. Gummy bears I could eat every day. Cookies I practically do. But I honestly wouldn’t mind if I never had a bite of ice cream (as distinct from gelato, which is of the gods) or cake again in my life. In fact, I can count on one finger the number of cakes I’ve had in my life that I’ve really enjoyed. Conveniently, it’s the finger on which I now wear my wedding ring.
Ordinarily, the metropolis is the place to come for the cultural sophistication and culinary expertise that is wanting in the provinces, but in this case, Amber and I traveled out from the center of all that’s good (Seattle) to our strip-malled version of “the sticks”—before one finds himself in the actual sticks, featuring bears that frequently roam in to play in the trash dumps—that is: Kirkland. For the blessedly uninitiated, Kirkland is home to dozens of tech start-ups, largely spun-off from defected and only sometimes disgruntled Microsoft employees, itself just a few miles up the road, and it is the antithesis of Seattle. The streets are designed for cars, the restaurants are all chains, the dwellings all single-family drywall boxes, and the place of business, without variant, is the business park.
Into one such park we two timidly wandered, driving around and around looking for Suite 110752, or some similar absurdity, and found, eventually, a half-fallen sign suggesting a baker might be on premises.
I suggested turning back, that they were probably closed, or terrible, but Amber said, gamely I think, “Look, all we have to do is go in, get a free piece of cake, and go home.” Sound reasoning, that. Plus, we had come all this way.
I winced at the interior—unpainted drywall and fluorescent lighting—and tried to ignore all the evidence suggesting the place was run by teenagers who had the idea to open up a cake shop that very morning.
Still, Mike, proprietor of Mike’s Amazing Cakes, is a creative genius of frosting. The books they pulled out for us showed not so much cakes as sculptures. The eye of man hath not seen, nor the mind of man conceived—as I think Nick Bottom the Weaver might have said on a clearer morning—such splendor as was on offer here.
We couldn’t afford any of them.
Or rather, we felt we shouldn’t afford any of them, however much we wanted to support this young Michelangelo. There was a more basic option, the hourly temp explained, lacking the fireworks and fondant: a simple butter-cream square to which we could tie our own ribbon for color-matching. It was explained to us while we munched our—was it 6th? 3rd?—cake sample, on paper plates of course, that Mike uses only organic ingredients, locally-sourced when he can get them.
We nodded our approval while we ate our very thin slices of not very impressive cake. Perhaps this Mike was more of a sculptor after all. The samples weren’t exactly sourced from Carrara marble, but they were just ordinary, Safeway-style, store bought, overly sweetened, slightly dry cake.
We left, shaking the dust of the suburbs off our shoes and then, curiously, ordered one. The choice seemed odd almost immediately after we’d placed the call, some weeks following our initial visit. We joked with each other afterwards, doing impressions of ourselves: “Mmm, this $750 cake is terrible; let’s get one.”
I can’t explain it. It’s like we were in a trance. But with all the other parts of the wedding to be planned, I just wanted something settled: one thing to cross off my mental list.
On the day of the wedding, my bride and I made the initial cutting—did we say a few words to open that proceeding? I don’t remember— and fed each other the first bites, as is our countrymen’s somewhat eccentric custom.
“Oh my god.”
“What did they put in this?”
“It’s amazing.”
“This is the best cake I’ve ever had.”
On and on it went. I don’t know what happened to damage Amazing Mike’s sense of consistency—let’s sell incredible cakes from the ugliest storefront imaginable! Let’s have pretty cakes taste like cardboard and plain ones taste like ecstasy!—but I’m glad it did.
The taste of food is a tough thing to convey in writing; it’s pretty firmly tucked up in the you-had-to-be-there school of experience, but it was rich and balanced, creamy and structured. The proportion of icing to cake material was exactly right in every bite, regardless of the angle of attack.
I was dumbfounded. Overjoyed. I was also, for the next two weeks, very very thankful that we’d overestimated the guest count and their attendant cake requirements by some 50 heads.