Singing the Words
For many of us, the source and power of poetry lies in its oral performance. It is first of all an oral and auditory medium. Indeed, this power of the …
Protected: TURNINGS: POEMS OF TRANSFORMATION
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Mountains, Men, Mines and Minerals
We have just returned from six weeks in the Western Cape of South Africa and ten days exploring central Namibia, its neighbor to the north. While it is the people …
Mountain Mysteries
Much of South Africa lives in the shadow and the inspiration of mountains — Table Mountain, the Drakensberg, the Winterberge, and many more that lie between the oceans and the …
Homer, Chiefs, and Presidents
While visiting in Cape Town, I recently had the pleasure of taking a summer school course at the University of Cape Town on Homer’s Iliad, from Professor Richard Whitaker, who …
Zebras, Robots, and Homer
After a five-year absence we have returned to our beloved Cape Town, land of the humped zebra. No it’s not a cross between a dromedary and a zebra. But it …
Titanic Revelations
Sometimes we don’t know where certain messages come from as we muse, fingering some words to give our intuitions substance. I think this poem comes from the haunting reverberations of …
Moving Midway: Toward Reconciliation
We recently saw an arresting documentary film entitled “Moving Midway,” a story about saving an old North Carolina plantation house and discovering the family histories behind it. Midway was a …
Rachel’s Weeping and Our Response
During the Christmas season we are confronted by two texts that not only speak to, but seem to arise out of, the grief that has swept this country in the …
Peace Conference 2012
Every Fall for the past five years more than 300 people have convened here for the Lake Junaluska Peace Conference. This posting is a report on that conference. This year’s …
The Question of All Saints
It is All Saints Day in the Church calendar here in the Latin West. We expand the horizon of our indebtedness to all those who have gone before and passed …
Lectern and Table for BU School of Theology
I recently completed a table and lectern for the newly renovated Walter Muelder Chapel at Boston University School of Theology. Working with Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore and Professor Carl Daw, …
Earth Gasping
On October 6 I gathered with other writers and avid readers at Grateful Steps Publishers Bookstore in Asheville, NC, to celebrate the appearance of another issue of Fresh, a literary …
The Mesabi
Minnesota’s Mesabi Range is historically the largest deposit of iron ore in the world. Arcing across the northeastern part of the state, it has been delivering iron ore to America’s …