Books of interest found at independent book stores — found, not on “featured” displays, but spine-out on the shelf. Of interest, meaning, the book was actually or very nearly purchased.

A friend tagged me in a “book challenge” on Facebook, which means I am obliged to share ten books that have affected my thinking. This is not much of an obligation, of course, because I love books, and there was never any question of my being able to resist the chance to gab about them.

In order for poetry to survive as poetry, it is not enough to simply translate the words. You need other poets to remake the translation into an entirely new poem, often injecting it with their own creativity in the process: sacrificing the original form so as to preserve the poem’s life in the new language. Fitzgerald famously took this approach with Khayyám’s poetry, and I have great hope that Tolkien’s upcoming Beowulf will do the same.

How do suburban landscapes affect the people who live there? The notes to this post will focus on “found impressions” of the suburbs by authors, artists, journalists, and architects.

Via Rod Dreher, a video of some Icelandic singers killing it at a German train station. The singing prompted Dreher to invoke Tolkien’s Elves, which I say is not at all inappropriate. Also: it is our express wish that oceans of public, impromptu harmonies sweep over commuters everywhere.

What is the value of poetry? How does it make itself felt? The notes to this post will focus on “found answers” to these questions from all over the web: answers which are themselves brief and poetic.

A survey of some of the criticism generated by Apple’s ‘Your Verse’ ad and the movie ‘Dead Poets Society’, which it references.

I saw this music video more than a year ago, and the aerial dancers and a few of the lines combined in my head somehow to remind me of another story.

The man who saw through the red and the black to the white.

Many found Branagh’s bit at the ceremonies too odd for their liking.

The sense of poetic discovery is one of God’s most often-neglected gifts.

Wherein I draw conclusions about the role of the backlit screen in our cognitive style, and paint a vision of life without it (the backlit screen I mean).

Some thoughts on a book by C.S. Lewis that might only make sense if you are familiar with everything else he wrote. (Double meaning intended.)

There is a popular magazine called Mindless Mundane Filler. You have probably read it recently.

While on a canoe trip in northern Minnesota, I found a classic piece of amateur prose in a small-town newspaper. I love small-town newspapers.

When it comes right down to it, Mr. Alexander is a nut.