The Molehill Podcast: This Is For All the Lonely Writers (feat. Jennifer Trafton & Chris Yokel)
Wherein Chris Yokel reads his poems “This Haunting” and “Another World,” Jennifer Trafton reads her piece This Is For All the Lonely Writers, we receive a brief serenade from Ron Block, and Drew Miller shares the second Word of Befuddlement: toom.
Read More ›The Molehill Podcast: Welcome to the Wilderness (feat. Don Chaffer & Rebecca Reynolds)
Wherein Rebecca Reynolds kicks off the show with her poem “Welcome,” Don Chaffer reads The Wilderness Journal, and Drew Miller shares the first ever Word of Befuddlement: pleethe.
Read More ›A Grace Triptych
The experience of lockdown that gripped much of the world during the Covid–19 crisis was, for me, a strange period in creative terms. New ministry and family pressures brought on by the existence of the virus meant that much of the mental space I rely on for reading and reflection was gone. In the earliest days of isolating and “social distancing” I felt like I had undergone a power cut in terms of writing.
Read More ›Introducing The Molehill Podcast
All of us have our main thing, whether we call it a career, a profession, a calling, or a vocation. It’s the primary occupant of our waking attention, it’s what we’re known for, and if we’re fortunate, it even pays the bills. But the hidden talent, the passion project, the side hustle—there’s an energy there that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s almost a kind of playfulness, an innocence reminiscent of childhood make-believe, untarnished by the urgencies of the everyday. That’s what The Molehill, the Rabbit Room’s annual literary journal, is for.
Read More ›The Resistance, Episode 24: Li-Young Lee
There’s an ancient story handed down to us in the Old Testament book of Numbers in which a group of people find themselves walking in circles. Their fear of change, their avoidance of Resistance, kept them from entering a portal to something—or somewhere—better. Sound familiar?
Read More ›Whilst the Cities Sleep: Quarantine Quatrains
It’s funny how forgotten, yet familiar books suddenly suggest themselves in lockdown! I have been re-reading a lovely old copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, in Edward Fitzgerald’s famous verse translation, and taking comfort, pleasure and fresh insight from it in this isolation. I’ve also been re-entranced by its elegant form. Fitzgerald cast his translation into a series of little quatrains: four line stanzas, each chiming sonorously on a single rhyming sound. They start with a couplet, and then he allows himself a free unrhymed line to gather energy and momentum before ringing the quatrain to a close as the final line returns to the first rhyme sound with renewed emphasis, and satisfying finality.
Read More ›The Habit Podcast: Jericho Brown (feat. Matt Conner)
Jonathan Rogers loved Matt Conner’s interview with Jericho Brown so much that he wants you to hear it, too. Jericho Brown won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection The Tradition and is one of America’s great literary geniuses.
Read More ›The Resistance, Episode 19: Jericho Brown
Jericho Brown was not waiting for these rewards, although we’re certain he’ll gladly receive them.
Read More ›Wounded by Beauty: Robert Frost, Douglas McKelvey, and Hope in Sorrow
“We feel ourselves wounded by what is wretched, foul, and fell,
but we are sometimes wounded by the beauty as well, for when it whispers,
it whispers of the world
that might have been our birthright,
now banished…”
—Douglas McKelvey, Every Moment Holy
What We Cannot See: A Lenten Reflection
Most of the light in the universe is invisible to the human eye. We see an estimated .0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum, and that estimate is based on what we can measure with current information and technology. The eye takes in a tiny fraction of what is real and present. Or, stated differently, the scope of what we cannot see is vast.
Read More ›A Letter and a Poem
As Valentine’s Day came closing in, Jonathan Rogers sent out the following letter on The Habit Weekly.
Read More ›Dancing Through the Fire
[Editor’s note: In case you didn’t know, Malcolm Guite has an excellent collection of poetry for the seasons of Lent and Easter—one poem for each day, including classics like Dante, contemporaries like Rowan Williams, and the work of Guite himself. The collection is called The Word in the Wilderness, and it makes an excellent companion to the Lenten season. To give you a taste, here’s a poem of Guite’s called “Dancing Through the Fire.”]
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