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Holding a Tin Cup with Mary Karr: A Belated Review of Sinners Welcome
I’ve sung the praises of Mary Karr on Heartlands before, recognizing a seminal moment in my own development as a writer and human being that was spurred by her 2008 presentation at the Festival of Faith & Writing. But my very first introduction to Karr, the memoirist and poet, was a book that was given… →
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Poetry: The Preacher’s Thumb on Ash Wednesday
My trembling finger once marked a woman in a year I knew would end the ritual of her annual ash. ‘Remember you are dust…” I faltered on the rest. Do doctors feel so transgressive when they are forced to break the polite illusion of immortality? We all know it’s not true. Death haunts our every… →
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How to Grow Your Fireweed Garden
‘Let it learn in sackcloth colors to thrive on desire alone.’ —Kimberly Johnson, ‘Ash Garden’ What if what ails us is that we are not hungry enough? Hear me out. This week the Christian calendar turns to the season of Lent, a time when Christians have traditionally reexamined their lives in light of Jesus’ journey… →
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Difficult Like Carson: Meditative Poetry for McCullers Day
In honor of Carson McCullers’ birthday: I could be difficult like Carson McCullers. I could drink too much have wild fantasies about what the next exciting trip would be believe that I deserved to be loved and doted on love inordinately but badly treat those around me with indifference All because of genius—charge it to… →
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Top 10 Posts of 2019
It’s been another good year for this Heartlands site. The number of views has almost doubled and we have had a number of good connections with and reviews from other sites. Below you’ll find the Top 10 posts from the year along with some other notable posts in the realms of books, interviews, and poetry.… →
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#4–Joy: Heartlands Best Reads of 2019
Christian Wiman made the Best Reads last year with his memoir He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, The Faith of Art. It was poetry itself. This year his 2017 collection of poetry itself, Joy: 100 Poems, graces the list. Wiman has a wonderful soul, as we all do and would notice if we just paid… →
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It’s Time for the Heartlands Best Reads of 2019! #10 – Uncommon Prayer
This is the 3rd year for the highly-anticipated Heartlands Best Reads list. If you want to check out previous years you can look here (2018) and here (2017). How does a book make the Heartlands list? Well, the main limiting factor is that Alex Joyner has to read it during the year. It’s been another… →
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The Rough Beauty & Devotional Poetry of Kimberly Johnson
About halfway through Kimberly Johnson’s 2002 poetry collection, Leviathan With a Hook, you find yourself face-to-face with the themes that have since come to characterize much of her work: a moment that opens the world, a rich encounter with nature and transcendence, and a little hint of disturbing fire. It’s all right there in “Up… →
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Aging Well with Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns is still carrying on his affair with Erato, the Greek muse he addresses throughout his poetry. “I wanted very much/ to find a word to grant us both assurance” he says in the poem “Erato at 64.” At such an age, lovers and poets know that the beloved is as much within them… →
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Finding Light: Poetry
Around a table at El Mag as the days grow short. A warm place in the early dark of December. I had a Burrito To Go— misnamed because I always eat it there. There are so few lights on the peninsula at night; much more darkness as raccoons meander across untraveled roads. Waves lap empty… →
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