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Author: Alex Joyner

  • A Rose Still Blooms Post-Brexit: A Review of Ali Smith’s Autumn

    Autumn is the season for reflection.  A cold wind blows and you wonder how many more winters you have in you.  Golden leaves burnished by a golden sunset rustle in the limbs above and you remember how they used to thrill you. “The trees are revealing their structures.  There’s the catch of fire in the… →

  • Inside Something: A Poem for a Rainy Day

    The tea cozy cover of a sunk-in rain. The vast, intimidating sky shielded by dark clouds. The low rumble of thunder. The wisdom of the rain speaking gently diligently:   “You are inside something. You are not without love or borders. All your anxious wonderings are contained within this sphere. Settle yourself. Learn the lesson… →

  • The Power Asks Us to Consider #WeToo: A Review

    Naomi Alderman’s provocative new book, The Power, is more simply described without the definite article.  Power, and how it infuses human relationships, particularly gender relationships, hums though this book like an electric current.  And just like that current, it can turn fearsome and deadly in an instant. The Power is an acknowledged heir to Margaret… →

  • Bray into the Dying Light

    Originally posted on Tell it Slant: On January 13 Alex Joyner posted his stunning new poem, “Sunset in Archer County,” on his Heartlands blog.  Coincidentally, that same day an employee of Hawaii’s emergency alert system issued a false alarm that terrified residents and visitors:  “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII.  SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.  THIS IS… →

  • Sunset in Archer County – A Poem

    If coyotes howl at sunset why do we sit in silence? Staring at our screens or dumbfounded by our electrified darlings we let the miracle pass unnoticed day after night after day. That a nuclear furnace on which all life depends some millions of miles beyond us is passing once more out of sight plunging… →

  • Love Stinks (But it Also Wins): A Delayed Review of Rob Bell

    The problem with love is it’s easy to sentimentalize.  O heck, there are many problems with love, sentimentalizing being the least of them.  Love distorts our vision.  Love lets us down.  Love keeps us in relationships we should have left.  Love is a knife to the heart and a passionate madness.  Yes, love is a… →

  • Spelunking: The Journey of Prayer

    In here is a cavern vast and brilliant Where old songs echo off ancient walls and fresh water drips down to do its long work of creation. In here the illusion of sterility can confound you as if no life stirs, no light illumines, no generative communion draws souls to one. But in here vistas… →

  • Beloved Numbskulls – Athanasius on Saving Face

    ‘Here, belovéd numbskulls, is a little picture: You gather, one presumes, what must be done when a portrait on a panel becomes obscured—maybe even lost—to external stain. The artist does not discard the panel, though the subject must return to sit for it again, whereupon the likeness is etched once more upon the same material. … →

  • Movies, Culture & Faith

    I periodically write for FaithLink, the United Methodist Publishing House’s faith-and-current-events curriculum.  My FaithLink essay on Movies, Culture & Faith just got picked up by the great Ministry Matters site.  Just in time for the Golden Globes! http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8676/movies-culture-and-faith →

  • Crossing into Mythical Mexico with Cormac McCarthy: A Review of The Crossing

    Cormac McCarthy doesn’t need any more accolades from the likes of me.  His reputation as a great American writer seems pretty secure.  But as a recent convert to the ranks of his fans, I have to say of The Crossing – wow. That’s probably sufficient.  I’m not going to be an equal to his prose… →