Category Archives: Poetry

Friday, September 18 — “you had better get / your eyes checked / or, better, still, / your diminished spirit” How many encounters could I remember if I worked at it, when someone took the trouble to tell me, bluntly … Continue reading →

Every so often, a poet taps on the window of my imagination and catches my attention.  I had not encountered Mary Karr before (b. January 16, 1955); now I am wondering why. Have a blest September Monday,   john sj Today’s … Continue reading →

September 11 – Mary Tobacco & Joy Harjo This week ends with bright September sun & its crisp wind gusts.   For me, today’s morning stillness stirs memories of two great native women, soul friends both Poet Laureate Joy Harjo … Continue reading →

Aug 28 – learning to be welcomed The large bulletin board on our second floor, next to the copier, the fax, our snail-mail boxes, and the car keys, creates a public space for the 18 Jesuits who live here to … Continue reading →

August 26  – –  “being surprised” When I pray from Mark or Matthew or Luke (i.e., the three “synoptic gospels”),  it helps me to treat the evangelist like a poet, to allow the surprise buried in the text to stop … Continue reading →

Monday, August 24, 2020 – “I left my car so I could help get them out of there.” Some days the local news can refresh your spirits.   Some days the news can knock you out with wonder and, at the … Continue reading →

August 19 – G M Hopkins, sj  1844-1889 “or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage” Recording of lark song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyo66_EyOtI Gerard Manley Hopkins, sj, a radical innovator among 19th century poets, chose Anglo-Saxon over Latinate English vocabulary … Continue reading →

Monday,  August 17,  2020 “the step you don’t want to take”  David Whyte Convocation gathers women and men who come to work at our 3 campuses, week in and week out, to take the thousands of small steps that make … Continue reading →

Don Doll is the finest photographer that I have ever met and he emailed saying how much he liked what we did in yesterday’s post.  However, as a great photographer might, he added a note to his email that said, … Continue reading →

Mary Oliver: “there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own” “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice” Late during the Lenten … Continue reading →