The poet and philosopher Rubem Alves writes about the idea of writing a story or a novel with just one word. Could it be done? What word would he choose? Which words has the power to tell the whole story?
Of a singular word Emily Dickinson wrote, “I know nothing in the world that has [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘poetry’
July 26, 2008
As Close as We’ll Ever Be
July 18, 2008
Friday is For Writers, Readers, and Everyone Else
• How having a blog can be a dangerous thing (here).
• A list of fictional movies referred to in Seinfeld. (here via kottke)
• Even England is being swept up by The Shack’s success, reports the Guardian.
• Here are some stories and poems from PEN’s annual Prison Writing Competition.
• The US just named a new Poet Laureate. (here and [...]
July 4, 2008
Why Christians Must Read Poetry — Frederick Buechner
Frederick Buechner, from Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
But to preach the Gospel is not just to tell the truth but to the the truth in love, and to tell the truth in love means to tell it with concern not only for the truth that is being told but [...]
May 29, 2008
The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet by Rubem Alves
The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet by Rubem Alves is the most important book on the subject of Theopoetics. Unlike Amos Wilder’s Theopoetics: Theology and the Religious Imagination–which, although claims to be writing against the discursive, prosaic, and rationalistic, is written in a form that is discursive, prosaic, rationalistic–Alves’ language and metaphors are pure poetry. While Wilder marches, Alves dances.
This [...]
May 26, 2008
Heaven’s Broken Heels
In Matthew 6, when Jesus was showing us how to pray, he said, “Our Father in ouranos (heaven) hallowed be your name” and later he says do not worry for the birds of the ouranos (air) do not worry. In Greek mythology the god Uranus comes from the Greek word ouranos, who was the sky-god, and his [...]
May 12, 2008
Why Christians Must Read Poetry — Part V — Jesus Was A Poet
Franz Wright’s essay “Language as Sacrament in the New Testament” in Image Journal discusses Wright’s endeavor into meditating on the words of Christ. He found that Christ was a poet too:
Jesus did speak this way [a powerful and profound way], in poetry—and here is something truly weird: according to the great German Protestant theologian Joachim [...]
May 9, 2008
Why Christians Must Read Poetry — Part IV — Men Read Poetry
I remember a John Eldredge piece (I think from Wild at Heart) discussing the average Christian man as weak. He said look around your churches today and the majority of men in them are weak men. I don’t know how to change my car’s oil. I couldn’t hammer a nail with a nail gun. I don’t [...]
May 8, 2008
Why Christians Must Read Poetry — Walking to Martha’s Vineyard
The summer of ‘99 I was in Boston for two weeks of hockey camps and a week of touring. I was traveling with my friend and his father and one sunny morning we boarded a ferry out to an island I’d never heard of. We walked along the shore and played in the Atlantic Ocean. [...]
May 2, 2008
Walking Over The Chicago River and Why Christians Must Read Poetry
I was walking past the Sears Tower last summer in downtown Chicago. I don’t remember the time but the sky was dark. I was trying to find the train station to catch a train to Milwaukee to see a Brewers game against Cincinnati the next day.
As I crossed over the Chicago River I paused and [...]
