Friday Links
Rencontre de saint Germain et sainte Geneviève by Isabella Pinson
January 3, 2024
Uncommon Grace: The Life of Flannery O’Connor
James Matthew Wilson on “Most of the Prodigies…”
Nimrod Journal Writing Contest
The Mystery of Consciousness: Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s Keynote at Kinross House
Patrick Kurp on the Underappreciated Jane Greer: ‘Be Able to Call It a Poem’
Uncommon Grace: The Life of Flannery O’Connor
Watch for free on PBS until 2/25/2025:
Flannery O’Connor left behind one of the most haunting and strikingly original bodies of work in 20th-century literature. With the rural South as her backdrop, she brought to life a string of eccentric characters torn between their worldly ambitions and the need for a more enduring truth. This film traces the people and events that shaped her remarkable career.
James Matthew Wilson on “Most of the Prodigies…”
But the realization of the life inside a mother’s womb, our realization as people living in this world, is the realization that we are not mere spectators of despair, but persons responsible to those lives still to be born to prepare a world for them. You might say, the romantic apocalypse of Yeats is a politics for people with nothing to do but watch. But all true politics begins with children. It is the realization that what we do with our lives, how we respond to the wonder provoked by the world at its best and at its worst, is not a decision simply up to us and unaccountable to anyone else. It is rather a decision we make in the context of the lives that we help bring into the world, over which we have custody, for which we have love, and whose lives will extend far beyond our own and so orient us beyond the spectacle of the present and guide our actions into the making of a future.
Nimrod Journal Writing Contest
Submit to the Nimrod Literary Awards, now until the end of the month! Boris Dralyuk is the Editor-in-Chief so you know this is an excellent journal.
The Mystery of Consciousness: Dr. Iain McGilchrist’s Keynote at Kinross House
Dr. Iain McGilchrist gives the keynote speech at the “A Symposium on Consciousness” conference:
In this captivating keynote, world-renowned philosopher and neuroscientist Dr. Iain McGilchrist delves into the depths of the human mind, exploring how the hemispheres of the brain shape our perception of reality. He challenges conventional thinking about consciousness, matter, and the nature of existence, offering a radical yet insightful perspective that will leave you questioning what you thought you knew.
Patrick Kurp on the Underappreciated Jane Greer: ‘Be Able to Call It a Poem’
Greer reminds me on occasion of Janet Lewis. Both might be described as “domestic” poets. They often write about homebound objects and events, like gardening and family, though that describes only the most superficial aspect of their poems, the “content.” Neither is a composer of “messages.” Their poems are made to be heard. They are constructions of sound. Greer recently spoke on the podcast “Let the Goat Go,” where she talks about some of the silliness I encountered in American Poetry Review:
“The irritant that I’m talking about is giving names to writing that doesn’t deserve those names or labels. Grandiose, pompous names. You’ll understand what I mean in a minute. Those words, grandiose and pompous, indicate dishonesty, pretending that something is what it’s not, or pretending that we are something that we’re not.”
