So who’s going to be the first to write a fantasy epic to go along with His Majesty’s new portrait? We have a version of Britain as Faerie Land, but do we have one yet as Purgatory?

I've become obsessed with Caspar David Friedrich. This exhibition catalogue is coming out soon. Any recommendations for good writing on Friedrich, particularly with respect to religion, philosophy, ecology? Willing to read German.

smb-webshop.de/themen-und-mot…

Not totally sure if he was first, but probably it was Sam Gribley in My Side of the Mountain.

Hailed as an “excellent book” by Jonathan Geltner, Dan Rattelle's Painting Over the Growth Chart is available now-but not for long!-for the pre-order price of only $12:
mailchi.mp/2a91eb930c54/l…
(With other appreciations of new books of poetry by Jane Clark Scharl, Anna Lewis, James Matthew Wilson)

Nothing against those who don’t drink for whatever reason, but every time I see this sort of neopuritanism I think of Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122, rode a bike till she was 100, quit smoking at age 117, ate two pounds of chocolate a week, wine every day, Mass every week.

I am unexpectedly, suddenly, rapidly writing a new short novel, set in Ohio in the summer of 1999, and somehow these two books represent the core of my 'research.' I think you'll enjoy this book. It's a kind of romance in the antique sense. I know I'm enjoying writing it.

Intro by Philip Rieff! I knew he wrote on Lawrence, but didn’t know he introduced this book.

It's like a drug commercial if they only ran the part about horrific side-effects.

About to read this, my first Charbonneau. He was a lifelong friend of Jacques Ellul.

bloomsbury.com/us/green-light…

Accidental still life. It would be one of those paintings known officially as Spring Evening or something like that but everyone would call it The Messy Desk.

As Bob Dylan sings it

“The future, for me, is already a thing of the past.”

Allow me to add that Jammes also ranked high in the category of writers with beards.

Thoughts on the poetry of Francis Jammes? There’s never been much in English. What influence he’s had on anglophone poets was at a time when more people read French. He was a provincial in the best French tradition. Claudel converted him. I’m thinking of translating some Jammes.

Beautiful. I would love to see more reflections like this. It’s a tremendously difficult genre to write.

Newsletter on D H Lawrence's religion delayed by sudden illness so severe that all I can do, apart from sleep, is listen to Welsh poetry on YouTube. It's more soothing because I can't understand all of it. Has anyone else had this experience?

This man was incapable of writing an unenjoyable sentence.

DHL's writings on Apocalypse contain some of his best insights and ideas. I've also been re-reading Claudel's later engagements with the Bible. To remain a living text, the Bible must inspire authors to engage it creatively. Who are your favorite modern authors who have done so?