It’s interesting to see the places where an artist’s imagination might fall a little short. As an Alabama kid, I can’t help noticing that for William Blake, one of those places is snakes, in realistic rather than visionary form. Even in London (as I am now), I carry my ingrained habit of scanning the ground […]
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On the top floor of the Accademia in Florence, in an overlooked panel of a medieval altarpiece, is an image that’s easy to ignore: a shepherd’s dog, barking at the angel who’s suddenly appeared to rouse the obviously startled shepherds from their sleep. There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks […]
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7/7/25 draft: part of an attempt to trace the figure of the skylark through Blake and Shelley into the twentieth century for A Thing of Beauty. The Lark Ascending: A Musician Goes to War The map is heavy, stiff, on grayish linen-backed paper, springing out of its folds like a creature eager to breathe. It’s […]
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Every time I teach Medicine in Literature, it’s a little different – and each time, it’s a gift. “Gift” was the throughline of our activities last week, including a discussion of organ and kidney donation, as described in Scottish physician Gavin Francis’s brilliant book ADVENTURES IN HUMAN BEING (2015). Francis, who describes himself in a […]
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One week ago, likely-not-for-much-longer British PM (and probably-soon-to-be-gratefully-reverted-hedgie/tech-bro) Rishi Sunak left the 80th anniversary D-Day celebrations at Normandy early to return to London and prerecord a TV campaign interview. Footage of that moment shows the host murmuring thank you for being here. Just back from Normandy, Sunak says. “It ran over.” Offense piled on offense, […]
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It’s official: actor Julian Sands has passed at age 65, after disappearing while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains. He was a great actor – and also a genuine aficionado of literature. His work offered me an artist’s great gift: a small-town kid’s early intuition that the world can be grand and beautiful beyond its […]
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Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, Ripton, Vermont On a hillside in Vermont, at the end of a gravel road, a wooden cabin near the treeline. Four apple trees. A meadow alive with butterflies, tall buttercups, and the low intent fronds of wild parsnip, which will flower by August in skin-blistering yellow stalks three feet high […]
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On Nov. 28, I’ll take part via Zoom in The Blake Society’s special event to celebrate the launch of its journal VALA’s new issue – which includes my short piece on teaching Blake’s “London” alongside current Blake Society president Kae Tempest’s spoken-word poem “People’s Faces” – over Zoom on Dec. 21, 2020. It was, and […]
Read moreOn the top floor of the Accademia in Florence, in an overlooked panel of a medieval altarpiece, is an image that’s easy to ignore: a shepherd’s dog, barking at the angel who’s suddenly appeared to rouse the obviously startled shepherds from their sleep. There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks […]
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From the introduction-in-progress to my book-in-progress A Thing of Beauty: Reading the Romantics in a World on Fire. All photos by me. – A glittering blue day at the top of the world: Montenvers in the Alps above Chamonix, France. January 15, 2020. Elevation 6276 feet. Everything here is ice and rock and sky. Look […]
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