Books
New life, new voices in Catholic letters
That such poetry, as found in recent collections by Ryan Wilson and Mark Amorose, is being published now should tell us that literary culture is far better […]
Articles by James Matthew Wilson
Essay
The “Cassocked Shadow” of Richard Wilbur
A New England poet of nature, indeed, but something must also be said for Wilbur’s Catholic vision of the poet. […]
Essay
On teaching the liberal arts
My maturation as a professor came when I learned to love ideas more by way of coming to love them through—in pilgrimage with, in communion […]
Books
Intelligent Design: On the Poetry of Catherine Chandler
Early in Catherine Chandler’s first book, Lines of Flight, she writes of “a six-mile stretch of road” along the historic Route 66, where “two towns align,” one bearing an old friend’s family name and […]
Books
Christian Politics Is the Benedict Option Now
Editor’s note: This is the second of a series of reviews and essays—positive, critical, and mixed—of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option (Sentinel, 2017). Read the first essay here. With the publication of La Primauté du spirituel, […]
Books
Finding a form for prayer
The last decade has been dotted with reluctant valedictions for the lost age of the American Catholic Literary Revival. Paul Elie’s The Life You Save May Be Your Own(2003), a hefty biographical history that interweaves […]
Books
On the Poetry of Kathleen Hart: Everything that Rises Must Converge
Imagine being the American architect, George Franklin Barber (1854-1915). Your designs for “houses and stores and churches” all fit on hundreds of little cards “threaded together with a length of yarn” to constitute a catalogue […]
Books
Franciscan Beat
In this age of Francis, in which the Holy Father seems to surprise everyone with his off-the-cuff pronouncements on matters of passionate intensity, we would do well to consider the work of David Craig, America’s […]
Books
In Christ-Haunted California: Dana Gioia’s 99 Poems
A new collection of poems is a remarkable retrospective on the career of one of America’s most accomplished and controversial poets. […]