Poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis a fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty while walking on the beach with his Labrador. His was not a desperate attempt to recapture youth, filled with sports cars and younger women. Instead, Cairns realized his spiritual life was advancing at a snail's pace and time was running out. Midlife crisis for this this Baptist turned Eastern Orthodox manifested as a desperate need to seek out prayer. Originally published in 2007, this new edition ofShort Trip to the Edgeinclude photos,...
Poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis a fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty while wa...
Featured in "The Millions" A year in Reading, Nick Ripatrazone.
"Each year I read more books than I can possibly review here are 5 of the finest and most memorable of that bunch. They are worth your money, your time, and your attention. A book of poems that fictionalizes the life of Trappist monkCharles de Foucauld. Beautiful verse, full of pieces like The Pangs of Wanting: I deliver my body to the church, / though I cannot imagine what penance might relieve / these pangs of wanting. Later: I take first communion My tongue licks up the bread: a whisper / of paper on my...
Featured in "The Millions" A year in Reading, Nick Ripatrazone.
"Each year I read more books than I can possibly review here are 5 of the fin...
Rooted in the grit of urban Baltimore and the forests of rural Massachusetts, these poems remind us that life's tensions and polarities are energies we carry within ourselves. These are poems of witness and commentary, conversation and meditation. They offer moments of close looking, and of looking away; of loving, and of bungled attempts to be more loving. They call us to look long and hard-- and generously --at our lives. Written with radiant honesty and fierce tenderness, they suggest a path of inner discovery where mystery awaits us in the ordinary.
Rooted in the grit of urban Baltimore and the forests of rural Massachusetts, these poems remind us that life's tensions and polarities are energies w...
