Sonnets Published

Ekstasis Magazine published a new double sonnet called, “My Wife Doesn’t Like These Sonnets.” She does like them though, so I guess I’m lying to you. Read it by clicking on the picture.

Poetry Reading at Aunt Eek’s

Poetry Reading Recording

On November 4, I had the honor of performing a few poems at the request of my alma mater, West Texas A&M University. It clocks in at an hour and six minutes, which is a lot. So here are some of the highlights. 5:40 – Introduction and Greetings 7:10 – The Local Imagination 8:40 – […]

Ryan Culwell’s Flatlands

Ryan Culwell’s “Flatlands” turns five years old next week.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/133302717″ params=”visual=true&liking=false&sharing=false&auto_play=false&show_comments=false&continuous_play=false&origin=tumblr” width=”100%” height=”500″ iframe=”true” /] Poet Christian Wiman reads “Every Riven Thing” in an excerpt from RN Encounter’s program, My Bright Abyss, about his recent work and spiritual journey. You can hear the full program at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/my-bright-abyss/5223134

I was arguing with a Franciscan nun about the Resurrection. I said, “Clearly this is horseshit. Surely, you don’t believe this stuff.” She said, “It’s easier for you to believe that the meek will inherit the earth?” Mary Karr. Lunch Poems. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_VWjKShI-0

Words Are Stuff: Poet Scott Cairns

I don’t want to just complain about my upbringing, because I learned a lot – I learned the love of God from those people – but there was a suspicion about the physical body and stuff, the earth, a sense that the body is expendable and the earth is expendable and what matters is what […]

Hammer Through Daisies

@curatormagazine posted my most recent essay. Surprise, I write about death again. And Dylan Thomas. Irony isn’t bad, of course. It allows us to grasp the nebulae of death or time or memory and examine them as things, briefly, because irony is a posture toward existence that grants the bizarre possibility that things like flowers […]

Little Girl Found

The kind folks @curatormagazine have posted one of my essays. Warning: it concerns child abductions. Here’s a link: Little Girl Found. A few years ago in a neighboring town, booming as a safe alternative to my relatively safe city, a man with no criminal record or history drove into the parking lot of a gas […]

In the first centuries of Christianity, the new religion proved insufficient for the educated people in many ways, and so gnosticism became widespread. Gnosticism did then what poetry does today for educated people. But poetry should not be reduced to mere aestheticism. In its most important instances, poetry is an exploration of man’s place in […]