Friday Links
July 19, 2024
Elk Lake, Waymart, PA
Can Beauty Save the World? With Makoto Fujimura and Dana Gioia
J. C. Scharl: A High and Holy Art for All
Abigail Wilkinson Miller: Books for Children
On classifying books by Nadya Williams
Can Beauty Save the World? With Makoto Fujimura and Dana Gioia
In a world preoccupied with political battles, culture wars, commercial competition, and status seeking, why should we care about beauty? What does it mean to pursue the good, true, and beautiful — and what difference would it make in real, everyday life?
Poet Dana Gioia and visual artist Makoto Fujimura are uniquely equipped to consider these questions. Through their numerous books, paintings, and poems, they have considered the meaning of beauty as it relates to fallen people in a fallen world.
J. C. Scharl: A High and Holy Art for All
J. C. Scharl on the poetry of James Matthew Wilson:
There is, however, a small resurgence of poets and critics willing to assert that poetry is more than self-expression, that it is a high and noble art modulated by discipline, technical skill, and deep attention to the world—that poetry is perhaps even a holy art that carries with it communal, social, political, and theological responsibilities. For decades, the champion of this view was Dana Gioia, former head of the National Endowment for the Arts and author of many books of poetry, as well as countless articles, reviews, and even libretti for various operas. In recent years, the poet, critic, and teacher James Matthew Wilson has emerged as a promising voice for this view of poetry as a high and holy art. Wilson’s triple calling has uniquely positioned him to shape and lead a community that may have a significant influence on English-language poetry across America.
And speaking of Jane, she’ll be the new poetry editor at Plough now that A. M. Juster is stepping down. We’ve been so grateful to Juster for his fine work there and know that Jane will be just as wonderful.
Abigail Wilkinson Miller: Books for Children
My family owns and enjoys many such books, so my intention is not to write them off. But sometimes it’s a breath of fresh air to read a book that understands the uncomplicated wonder of being a child. That’s what we found in Come Again, Pelican. Ty delights in his new red boots, in the thrill of catching his first fish, and in the majesty of the pelican’s flight. He learns, over the course of the story, about the comforting predictability of the natural world: about the ebb and flow of the tide, about the coming and going of the birds, about the symbiosis that we can achieve if we just take the time.
On classifying books by Nadya Williams
Because most of us like some variety in our reading, Williams catalogues books into tiers and then offers some reading selections from each tier. Please feel free to share your own suggestions in the comments.
