<![CDATA[JAMES MATTHEW WILSON

<![CDATA[JAMES MATTHEW WILSON - Latest News]]>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:57:25 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[Reviews You Can Use]]>Sat, 12 Apr 2025 21:12:00 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/reviews-you-can-useIt has become difficult to make regular updates to this cite of my various publications, but here are a few entries that I hope will reward your attention. First and foremost, please click on the icon of the latest review of Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds. It is exhilarating to see a critic approach my work with such detail, appreciation, and finally, plaudits. A huge honor.

I try to do the same in my new Modern Age review essay on Dana Gioia's critical prose. I return to The Catholic Thing with a short essay on one of the central questions of modern theology: how shall we understand Christianity, Psychology, and Creation?

Finally, I include a link to my latest sonnet in National Review, "At the Funeral Parlor," and then, if you scroll down, you can read print versions of two of my new poems in Chronicles magazine. Incidentally, both poems were shortlisted for a large international poetry award, but didn't make the final cut. Another poem of mine soon to be published received a similar almost-honor. Read below and stay tuned!

A Review of Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds

A New Essay on Christianity as the True Psychology

My Review of Dana Gioia's "The Enchantment of Poetry"

A New Poem, "At the Funeral Parlor"

]]><![CDATA[Sacred Ascents]]>Wed, 03 Jul 2024 14:00:46 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/sacred-ascentsPoetry and religion get batted about together quite often and for reasons that are at once easy to explain but hard to explain away. In this month's update, I explore these intertwined realities, one a humble art form, the other the fundamental meaning of everything, in a number ways. Too many ways, in fact; I've been remiss in updating my Latest News page and now I find I have six published items to share along with a new podcast on Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds, and this leaves out several other things I would otherwise have brought to the reader's attention.

Click below to read a new poem, "A Crystal Wine Glass," which appears in the first issue of a new magazine. Click on to have a look at three review essays that discuss new books by Michael Edwards, Micheal O'Siadhail, and Charles Taylor. Writing these three helped me crawl closer to understanding on that most profound and extended intertwining of poetry and religion, so much so that I at long last may be ready simply to say something on the subject rather than respond to the theses of others. One last note, the O'Siadhail piece also includes another short poem of mine, one I never thought to publish until recently as it was originally a gift to my wife, but I thought it might be of interest to others. Both of these pieces are available online exclusively here or in the print journal, Presence. I encourage you to subscribe to that annual review of Catholic poetry.

In Catholic World Report I have a long essay, "The Spiritual Terrain of David Middleton," a review of the career of one of Louisiana's greatest poets. This essay was long in coming. I first conceived of writing it more than a decade ago, and Middleton has published two new books since then. The time was ripe.

You will see that in addition to my review in Public Discourse that magazine has also published a public conversation I had with my friend and colleague, Mark Shiffman. "What Is Ideology?" discusses his new little book on that subject and gives us a chance to explore that perennial question, what's wrong with the world?

Reviews are beginning to appear for my latest book of poems, Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds, and the response to it has so far been uniformly positive. Next update, I'll include a batch of reviews, but this time around I'd like to invite you to listen to a recent interview I did on the book with Thomas Mirus of CatholicCulture.org. This is, I think, the fourth podcast interview I've done on the book; if you enjoy it, you might check out further conversations I had with Deal Hudson, Mike Rippy, and Joe Grabowski, all of which are available on Youtube.
In

A Crystal Wine Glass

Poetry in the Cosmos

Scripture as Poetic Sacrament

The Spiritual Terrain of David Middleton

O'Siadhail's Assent and Dedication

What Is Ideology? A Conversation

]]><![CDATA[On the Death of Poetry and of Death in Poetry]]>Mon, 01 Apr 2024 21:09:59 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/on-the-death-of-poetry-and-of-death-in-poetryA surprising abundance of new work has appeared in the early months of this year. This latest update includes a couple poems, including "Obsessed," regarding which I also gave an interview. I hope that poem will crack you up where it is supposed to and sober you up where it intends. "Late April Snow Storm" was written last year, when the snow wouldn't quit; this year, although we have snow in the forecast for this week, most people here in Michigan wish the snow could come back to stay for awhile, if only so we could get a little more skiing in up north.

The feature essay this month in "The Patient on the Table," my long-requested and long-awaited response to a pair of essays Matthew Walther wrote about the death of poetry (although the moment of mortality seems to have been a bit wobbly along with everything else). That essay argues that poetry is not dead, but the other three essays included here all address the poetry of death: John Finlay's final poem and prayer, before he died of AIDS; the poetry of Lent, from Eliot and Donne to the present; and a short essay on a special poem by Joseph Bottum, which emerges from the other side of death (including ritual death) to hear the bells of Easter.

Also collected here is a short essay discussing the Martyrs of Communism project on which I have been working with the Benedict XVI Institute. There is much to say on this subject, and this article is a short one compared to some of the other essays discussing it; on the other hand, it is the only place where you can find quotations from my poem, "Stanzas for the Chinese Martyrs," which the composer Frank LaRocca has set to music and which will have its world premiere in May.

Please click the icons below to read and enjoy. But see below also for a picture representing a special offer. I am offering two sets of signed copies of all four of my full-length collections of poems. My request is for a donation of $100 for each set. If you are interested in supporting my work in this way, please simply click on the picture below, which will take you to my Contact page. I can take payment in several different forms and am very grateful for your support.

Easter blessings to you, wherever this little letter finds you.

"Obsessed" and an Interview with James Matthew Wilson

"The Poetry of Death and Resurrection"

"Late April Snow Storm"

On Joseph Bottum's "Easter Morning"

"Archbishop Cordileone’s Vision: Honor Martyrs of Communism With Music, Art and Literature"

"The Patient on the Table: On the Somewhat Exaggerated Death of Poetry"

"John Finlay's Prayer to the Father"

]]><![CDATA[After Twelve Years in the Desert]]>Thu, 22 Feb 2024 01:52:58 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/after-twelve-years-in-the-desert

If I am not mistaken, I wrote the first pages of what would become Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde" during my first sabbatical, twelve years ago. It was the beginning of a long wandering through the desert, where the somewhat more mature James Matthew Wilson tried to show to his younger, more precocious self, how the patient and careful labor of scholarship is to be done. The result is a mammoth book that covers the whole life and work of three minor but distinctive poets: Thomas MacGreevy, Brian Coffey, and Denis Devlin. Along the way, one learns how profoundly the spirit of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Blaise Pascal could shape the modern poetic imagination. It is a book written for scholars, but also one that I hope will do two things: will provide an example for scholars of literature, philosophy, and theology as to how one can at once enter into the depths of a subject and yet simultaneously show to the casual reader why such subtleties of knowledge matter; will open the history of some fascinating characters to a lay readership.

I have five autographed copies of the books available for sale at $45 (including shipping). If you happen to be interested, just drop me a line via the contact page.

For those who do not have a fortune to drop on scholarly tomes, let me invite you to take a look at these items brought to you for free by way of the internet (free for you, but alas, you are the internet's product, I'm sorry to say . . . let not such diabolical thinking hinder your enjoyment!). Below, please find two essays on the southern poet and Catholic convert, John Finlay, as well as a new poem in The New Criterion, and, in the photo at bottom, another poem from the lovely new magazine Joie de Vivre.

Please check back here often, or subscribe to my newsletter. I have some essays of a controversial stripe forthcoming not to mention news of yet another, long sojourning, book.

John Finlay's Poetics of the Incarnation

Catholicism and Gnosticism in the Work of John Finlay

Tucson Hospital, Waiting Room

]]><![CDATA[Of Martyrdom and Michigan]]>Thu, 16 Nov 2023 16:22:49 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/of-martyrdom-and-michigan

I have a great deal to share with you this month, including news about the little volume pictured above as well as several new works linked to in the images below.

So, first, the Benedict XVI Institute has been commissioning poems from me over the last several years. Readers of The River of the Immaculate Conception will recall that that entire volume was written in honor of Frank La Rocca's Mass of the Americas, and that both the mass setting and my poem were commissioned by the Institute. I have continued to write occasional poems, including "In Memory of the North American Martyrs" and, most recently, an "Offertory Hymn for Ukraine." The first was one of two poems I wrote for the Year of St. Junipero Serra and the American Saints, the second was written specifically for Frank LaRocca as a text for music. LaRocca has since composed a setting for the first three stanzas of the hymn, which made its world premiere in Toronto this last September and which will make its American premiere early next year as part of a new mass setting.

Two Poems for Martyrs contains the complete text of both poems, including stanzas that were not included in the LaRocca setting. The Institute has published this limited edition booklet as a gift for their donors. They have generously given me a small number of copies to sell as a way of raising support for my ongoing work as a poet. The book is small but beautifully produced; and by small I mean my fourteen-year-old, James Augustine, read the whole thing standing in our front hall with his backpack still on. He did say, however, that it took him longer to read it than he expected and that he could hear the iambs, so I am consoled.

I am offering ten signed copies for those who are interested in supporting my work. I ask for $15 (postage included) as a starting donation for this little keepsake. Simply write me on my CONTACT page to learn more.

Just below, you'll find three new works of mine, each of which is a first in one way or another. "Vanished Fire" will be the penultimate poem in my next book, but here it is in the pages of Plough. It is written in the most complex stanza form I have yet used (this one borrowed from Shelley). "Sweet Land of Michigan" is an essay I have waited nearly two decades to be able to write -- and with satisfaction, I have now not only written it but published it as my first-ever cover article in First Things. After years of writing poems and reviews for that journal, it was a pleasure to join the lead articles. Finally, National Review has just published my review of the new biography and collected poems of Anthony Hecht. If the art of poetry ever fully regains its bearings in the coming decades, Hecht along with Richard Wilbur will be the two poets who spanned the abyss and kept the present in touch with the past while keeping the poetic tradition a live and agile. This review is the first time I have written about Hecht since one of my first scholarly articles was published more than a decade ago; and, since so few people actually read scholarly articles, this is effectively the first time most readers will have heard me reflect on one of the Old Masters of American verse.

Click the icons below to read, or click over to the CONTACT page to learn more about Two Poems for Martyrs.

Vanished Fire

Sweet Land of Michigan

Anthony Hecht's Civilized Poetry in a Barbaric Age

]]><![CDATA[Hope and Holiness]]>Sat, 23 Sep 2023 18:05:23 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/hope-and-holinessMy regular updates when on hiatus during most of the summer, while I spent a few weeks in Houston running the wonderful Summer Literary programs there, including our Summer Writers Institute, Summer Literary Series, and the MFA Residency. Nearly every night, I welcomed some talented guest to the stage to read or lecture and, most of the time, also to offer seminars to our graduate students. It was incredible, but exhausting. In the lead up to the series, I wrote a great deal of new work, which has been slowly appearing, but only now have I had a chance to begin collecting it for the faithful, or casual, reader.

This may be a bit of an overload, but here we go. In Ad Fontes, you'll find one of two recent sesta rima poems I have published: "The Heart Would Make Itself Known." In The Catholic Thing, I revisit the theological virtue of hope as Benedict XVI explored it; Benedict offers a devastating critique of the modern age, one that we should all heed. National Review published my review of Zina Hitz's latest book, A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life, and First Things has just published my short review of Dana Gioia's latest collection of poems. Speaking of Dana Gioia, I recommended his work and that of four other contemporary poets during my interview with Five Books for Catholics. I think the interview went well beyond a mere booklist to help the interested reader discern why poetry is something work thinking about. It occurs to me that I did not ever make notice of another interview I did this year, for Presence, and so I've included a pdf version of the print issue here; I got to share a great deal of my thoughts, all grateful, for the blessing of the MFA program I direct. Finally, printed below, please find "From The Awful Disclosers of Maria Monk," a poem that ran in this summer's issue of The Lamp.

I have some exciting work in criticism coming out shortly and when that appears, I'll provide another of these updates. In the meantime, I would beg the interested reader to follow me on social media, as I will have three major updates between now and next April, as during that span I'll be publishing three new books. People don't stay tuned anymore, but perhaps they scroll by frequently. Click the icons below to read any and all of these new works.

"The Heart Would Make Itself Known"

Review of Dana Gioia's "Meet Me at the Lighthouse"

"Superstitions of Progress"

Interview: "Contemporary American Poets Every Catholic Should Read"

"The Hidden Life"

Interview: "To Dwell Poetically in the World"

]]><![CDATA[Aesthetics Ancient and Modern]]>Tue, 06 Jun 2023 15:29:51 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/aesthetics-ancient-and-modernThis month, I have a genuine handful of prose to share with readers, all of which explores the connection between the written word and the Eternal Word, the splendor of form which is beauty and the Divine Beauty. In these essays I explore Thomas Aquinas and T.S. Eliot; the classical and Catholic poetic tradition from Homer to yours truly; the aesthetics of witness in the Acts of the Apostles; and the weird imagination of Marly Youmans.

The fifth addition this month is my contribution to Robert George's new project: Fidelity Month. Let us all take time this June, that month when the tyrannical regime of abortion was at last overturned in our country, to renew our commitment of faithfulness to God, to family, to country . . . and to our local communities. I'll be revisiting the great good of commitment to one's place in an upcoming issue of First Things, but this essay touches on one of the major themes. In the meantime, I hope that everyone will continue to learn that living in a smaller place is to live in a bigger world, because things are always much larger on the inside than on the outside. We can only see this, however, if we study them with patience and stability.

Check back here often. I will have a review of Zina Hitz's new book, an essay on Richard Wilbur and the desolation of contemporary poetry, as well as new poems from my own hand, among other things, in the coming monthly newsletters.

"The First Metaphysical Poet"

"Fidelity to Place"

"The Reclaiming of a Great Tradition"

"How the Apostles Spoke of the Beauty of Christ"

"The Rebirth of Wonder"

]]><![CDATA[Word Hoard]]>Fri, 07 Apr 2023 18:42:53 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/word-hoard"Word-hoard" is, as I recall, the Anglo-Saxon kenning equivalent to "vocabulary" in modern English. This month's update is something of a hoard itself and this update is the hoardings for it. We begin with a hoard of five poems from Alabama Literary Review, including "Catullans" which is indeed about a hoarder. We continue with two essays that hoard, in the sense of gather and treasure together the work of poets old and new. In The New Criterion I attempt to sum up the achievement of T.S. Eliot, that hoarder of other poets' best lines, and in Religion and Liberty, I discuss the career in poetry of the writer and editor Joseph Bottum, who is himself a hoarder of lost things, including Neo-Latin. If you have made it through these redundancies, then stick around long enough to click the icons and read the hoards. Please note that the ALR portfolio of poems will open as a pdf. The complete issue will be published online in the month ahead, but I'm sharing my portion here and now.

My next book, Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde," the result of almost two decades (off and on) of research will appear this fall from Catholic University of America Press. I am currently in discussion with publishers and look forward to seeing through the press my next book of poems, Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds.

Five New Poems

T.S. Eliot's Still Point

The Neo-Latinate Imagination of Joseph Bottum

]]><![CDATA[Cupid, Capra, and the Cross]]>Wed, 22 Feb 2023 18:09:54 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/cupid-capra-and-the-crossIn this month's update, we have two new poems, a longish reflection on contemporary politics in the light of Aristotle, Burke, and Frank Capra, and a very short reflection on the Sign of the Cross. On this Ash Wednesday, I note that all these items make for good Lenten reading, with one poem giving you reason to look inward and another representing what you may well find there, if you do look. Click the links below to read them all!

Also included below is a recent lecture I delivered on the relationship of Poiesis to Human Dignity. It sums up the present state of my understanding on human nature, art, and contemplation. I gave the lecture to a small, private audience and did not intend it for wider distribution, but since it is now, like everything else, on the internet, I guess there is no harm in sharing.

"A Wedding Night"

"Eros"

"Capraesque Politics"

"Be Promiscuous with the Sign of the Cross"

]]><![CDATA[Limited Signed Editions in Hard Cover]]>Thu, 05 Jan 2023 18:48:12 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/limited-signed-editions-in-hard-cover

Look at these beautiful volumes, placed for the moment where I keep a signed edition of Yvor Winters's Collected Poems along with some other dear momentos. What you see here are the first hard cover copies of The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking and Some Permanent Things, both now in Second Edition with redesigned cover and dust jacket.

When these books first appeared, in 2014 and 2015, Wiseblood books was a young press and issued volumes only in paper. Wiseblood has grown and flourished in the intervening years and the publisher wanted to issue these volumes from the early list in elegant hard cover editions. Some Permanent Things had already appeared in a second edition, revised and expanded; Fortunes had long been in need of a second edition to make a few corrections, typographical and substantial. Now we have both in a matching set.

I have ordered ten matching sets of these books and would like to offer readers the opportunity to order signed, hard cover sets of these books, for $64 (shipping included). If you are interested, please simply drop me a line using my Contact form on this web site. You can pay by check or by Paypal, and I will get your volumes in the mail within the day.

Thank you, Readers, for your past support and your continued interest in my work in verse and prose.

]]><![CDATA[Christmas at St Mary Woolnoth]]>Tue, 27 Dec 2022 16:57:13 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/christmas-at-st-mary-woolnoth

St. Mary Woolnoth

My last update spoke of the poetry of autumn. This one finds us barely past the beginning of the Christmas Season and the people of West Michigan sunk beneath about thirty inches of snow, all raising its brilliant and silent hymn of glory. As we mark these joyous feast days, we recall also another anniversary, the centenary of the publication of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. St. Mary Woolnoth is the historic Anglican Church in central London that sits opposite Lloyd's Bank. During Eliot's years at the Bank, he would visit that parish and its consolation and summoning to the life of the spirit would be memorialized in his great modernist poem.

The homily for the Second Sunday of Advent moved me to write an essay on Yvor Winters. And the feast of the North American Martyrs led to my commission to write a poem in their memory. Look below to find those three items. Click the icons to read them. Click still another to read Patrick Kurp's review of The Strangeness of the Good.

And scroll even farther down, if you would like to see my public conversations with Dana Gioia and Robert Royal. One took place during the Summer Literary Series at the University of Saint Thomas, where my MFA program had gathered for its annual residency. The other took place at the Napa Institute, in late July.

I will have a further special announcement soon, regarding my books, but in the meantime, click and enjoy these free items. I hope they somehow enrich this season of new birth for all of you.

"The Waste Land at 100"

Stay Awake: Death, Catholicism, and Yvor Winters

"In Memory of the North American Martyrs"

Patrick Kurp reviews "The Strangeness of the Good"

]]><![CDATA[We All Are Falling]]>Wed, 02 Nov 2022 14:39:49 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/we-all-are-falling4618983"We all are falling." So Rilke writes in his poem, "Autumn." This months update includes writing on autumn, both its poetry and its politics, along with two poems, one old one new.

First Things has just published my short essay, "The Poetry of Autumn," which is one of several pieces I've written (though the others are forthcoming) that considers the New England poetic tradition and its famous representatives. "The Culture Wars Comes to Michigan" is my first essay for The Dispatch, an argument against the egregious Proposal 3, which would install an unlimited right to kill unborn children -- and indeed all manner of other violences -- in the Michigan constitution.

Also in First Things, this time in the November issue, is "For Martha," a new sonnet." The Catholic Thing has just reprinted an older poem of mine, "On a Palm." Since they were reprinting it anyway, I asked them to print a revised version that I think improves the poem (the revised version will eventually appear in my book On the New Physics). This poem has the same title and is from the same poetic sequence as another poem of the same name. The differences between them are very great, including that that other poem appeared in The Best American Poetry 2018, while this poem did not.

While I am at it, I am including a video of my reading with Frederick Turner and Paul Mariani at the Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination conference, which was held on the final weekend of September and the first day of October. The reading was sponsored by the Catholic Culture Podcast.

As always, click the icons below to read the new work.

The Poetry of Autumn

The Culture Wars Come to Michigan

For Martha

On a Palm

]]><![CDATA[All That Is New]]>Wed, 14 Sep 2022 15:44:19 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/all-that-is-newA few new items have gone out from my desk in the last month, including two new book reviews and one new poem. So, click below to read about the work of Daniel Brown, John Foy, and Paul Mariani, and have a look at the beautiful spread The European Conservative created for the debut of my work in their pages.

This month also marks the publication of two new anthologies, Christian Poetry in America Since 1940, edited by Micah Mattix and Sally Thomas, and The Saint Mary's Book of Christian Verse, edited by Edward Short. Some of my poems appear in both these anthologies. I've included some pictures below. Those of us who want to make a lasting work, and worry about the mortality of mortal things, will appreciate what a blessing it is to have poems live on in anthologies, where new readers and future readers may discover one's work.

Speak, Memory

Atlas, Christ, and Poets' Subjects

]]><![CDATA[Crooked and Weak Hearts]]>Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:20:16 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/crooked-and-weak-heartsWhat's new this month from James Matthew Wilson? I'd like to know myself. After a month of running the Houston residency for the MFA program, circling Lake Michigan with family and friends, a trip to Louisville to give three lectures and receive the Memoria Press Parnassus Prize, and then doing a public interview with Dana Gioia at the Napa Institute, there has not been a whole lot of time for writing.

I have some new work forthcoming in books and magazines, including a good number of poems, and I expect to have two new books out in the coming year, but for the moment I have two prose pieces to share, both of which speak, I think, to an important theme in the intellectual and Christian life: honesty. Or, what W.H. Auden called being "silly." Have a look.

"I am Weak" in The Catholic Thing

"The Crooked Heart of W.H. Auden," in National Review

]]><![CDATA[For the Beauty of It]]>Thu, 16 Jun 2022 02:50:01 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/for-the-beauty-of-itI write this note from Houston, where the University of Saint Thomas Summer Writers Institute begins tomorrow. For three days, participants from around the country will convene to discuss theology and the arts, the history and practice of literary craft, and their own work. Through a generous donation, we were able to pay for all students' tuition and food for the Institute. We kept the numbers low to ensure an intimate but convivial gathering and personal attention to each participant's writing. As soon as that concludes, the first annual MFA residency in creative writing will begin and, for ten days, our students will gather to discuss poetry and fiction, to critique each other's work, and to hear from some of the great writers of our day. Indeed, the Saint Thomas Summer Literary Series will run from tomorrow through June 28th and bring an incredible slate of writers and scholars to Houston to discuss the future of Catholic letters.

Online silence will soon descend, and so let me share just a few items in the usual monthly update. I have a new poem to share, two new essays (including one bringing to a close my three-part Map of Dante), and a miscellany of lectures and podcast appearances, all viewable or listenable just by clicking the images below.

The selection of videos here may prove a little overwhelming: a lecture on the Catholic imagination in American poetry, my participation in a discussion of the classic Italian film La Strada, some thoughts on poetry, and my conversation with several distinguished writers on the question of literature, form, and story.

Our Lord Saith

Science, Prayer, and the Density of Being

A Map of Dante's Paradiso in Three Touchstones

]]><![CDATA["As every mystery worth the name will do"]]>Thu, 19 May 2022 13:38:46 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/as-every-mystery-worth-the-name-will-do

This month's edition of the latest writings from the desk of James Matthew Wilson includes a short poem about the threshold of lilac boughs that led into the backyard of our old house in Pennsylvania, a threshold that was indeed a portal into mystery. Appropriately, all my new prose essays this month are about other portals to mystery, particularly those through which we may enter if we journey with Dante and Paul Claudel toward the kingdom of God. I round things off with an entrance into the mystery of mysteries, the revelation of divine truth given to us in the Nicene Creed, on which I have published a new book.

Click on the images to the write to read "Lilacs," "Paul Claudel and the Poetry of Praise," "A Map of Dante's Inferno in Three Touchstones," and "A Map of Dante's Purgatorio in Three Touchstones."

In two weeks, my series on Dante will be completed. If you have not seen it, take a look at last month's announcement about my new book, Praying the Nicene Creed: I Believe in One God. You can read the first chapter by clicking the Catholic Truth Society logo below.

Read "Lilacs" in National Review

Read "Paul Claudel and the Poetry of Praise" in The Catholic Thing

Read "A Map of Dante's Inferno in Three Touchstones," in Church Life Journal

Read "A Map of Dante's Purgatorio in Three Touchstones" in Church Life Journal

Read an excerpt from "Praying the Nicene Creed: I Believe in One God," newly published by the Catholic Truth Society

]]><![CDATA[From Nagel's God to the Nicene Creed]]>Tue, 12 Apr 2022 15:14:55 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/from-nagels-god-to-the-nicene-creed

Although I've been kept away from the writing desk much of this spring, I have still managed to compose a thing or two. This week's offerings include my Catholic Thing essay on theology, metaphysics, and philosopher Thomas Nagel, called "A New Theism?" and my most recent poem in First Things, "Atmosphere."

Forma magazine has also published my long essay, "What Are Stanzas For?" and three new poems: "The Bones of Men and Women," "Before the Gates," and "The New World." I encourage you to subscribe to Forma, which has just announced that its print and online versions will now be offered free to all subscribers. I include an image of one poem here; you can click it to find the subscription link.

Last but not least, my eleventh book, Praying the Nicene Creed: I Believe in One God has just been released in the United Kingdom by the Catholic Truth Society. It is available for order in the United States, though I understand that a US publisher may eventually begin distributing it domestically to make it easier to come by. Click on the book cover to learn more.

Click here to learn more about my newest and eleventh book, "Praying the Nicene Creed: I Believe in One God"

Click here to read "A New Theism?" in The Catholic Thing

Click here to read my newest poem, "Atmosphere."

Click here to sign up for a free subscription to Forma magazine, where you can read my latest essays and poems.

]]><![CDATA[New Reviews]]>Fri, 11 Feb 2022 20:15:16 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/new-reviewsMy most recent book reviews are available here. In the months ahead, I'll be publishing short essays on what the great works of the Catholic literary revival have to teach us still. If you read last month's "The Body of Notting Hill," which was the first in the series, you'll have a sense of what I mean. New poems are forthcoming for a number of magazines presently. I'll be traveling the lecture circuit so much that I do not have time to list the dates and places. I hope you'll find something in these new pieces to while away the hours and draw you nearer to good art and transcendent beauty.

"We Move Together"

The Christian Humanism of A.M. Juster

]]><![CDATA[Encounters]]>Sat, 15 Jan 2022 05:00:00 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/january-15th-2022This month, I have a few encounters to share. First, my new poem "Encounter," in North American Anglican Review. Second, a set of five poems in Alabama Literary Review, most of which were inspired by the re-encountering of my native terrain, after my family's permanent return to Michigan this summer. Third, my interview with Matthew Sawtelle of Vermillion magazine. And, fourth and finally, my re-encounter with The Catholic Thing, where I resume my regular column after a short hiatus. This month begins a series of essays inspired by Catholic authors; this round, Chesterton and Pope Francis on the irreducible necessity of the truth of incarnation. Click the icons below to read the latest from James Matthew Wilson

Encounter

Five Poems

Interview with Matthew Sawtelle

The Body on Notting Hill

]]><![CDATA[Farewell to an idea . . .]]>Sun, 05 Dec 2021 17:37:07 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/farewell-to-an-ideaThe establishment of the world's first MFA program in Creative Writing in the Catholic Literary Tradition is taking a little time away from the Wilson writing desk. Who could have guessed? There is forthcoming work, however, and will be more as we head into the new year. For the moment, have a look at this new poem and new review essay, both of which dwell on one of my favorite subjects, the question one's natural homeland and our spiritual homeland. Click the icons to read.

Farewell to Berwyn

The Complicated Story of Catholicism

]]><![CDATA[Missing the Mystery]]>Mon, 15 Nov 2021 15:31:02 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/missing-the-mysteryProvidence often draws the unlike together to make it a coherent whole. So it seems in this month's update, where a new poem, an essay in political philosophy, and a reflection on composing a new Litany for a requiem Mass all seem to call us to enter more deeply into the religious mystery of being -- or rebuke us for the often cruel ways in which we refuse to do so. Click the links below to have a look.

I Come to Bury "Meaning," Not to Praise It

The Mystery of Litanies

]]><![CDATA[Poems Very Old and Very New]]>Wed, 15 Sep 2021 17:15:15 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/poems-very-old-and-very-newIn the very old department, have a look at my new essay in Catholic World Report in commemoration of the seven-hundredth anniversary of Dante's death. In the new department, please find links to two recent poems in Reformed Journal: "Cracks" and "The Prow of the House." In the very, very new department, learn a bit more about the new MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas, Houston, in my latest Catholic Thing essay, "A New Chapter of Grace." Click the icons below to take a look!

Dante at Seven Hundred

Cracks

The Prow of the House

A New Chapter of Grace

]]><![CDATA[A Coupla Talkies]]>Fri, 02 Jul 2021 16:41:16 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/a-coupla-talkiesI remember once mentioning to a classmate of mine that I'd gone to the movie theater the evening before. She was compulsively facetious and, no sooner had I shared this small bit of intelligence, than she spat out, "Oh, was it a talkie?"

On the road, preparing even now to unload the boxes I only just loaded in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, I have not done much writing this month. But I did have the great honor of delivering a lecture for Thomas More College, in New Hampshire (set in my home study just before the shelves came down) and then to appear on a wonderful video podcast. I share them with you here in hopes that, should you be interested in seeing a movie and hearing a talkie, on the subjects of beauty, poetry, and the divine, these might do the trick.

]]><![CDATA[New Publications: Moving Edition]]>Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:21:01 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/new-publications-moving-editionThese last weeks have been -- and will remain, I pray -- singular in my writing life. My library broken down into book boxes and stacked about me, as they await moving day, I managed to crank out a handful of new pieces. These are the last I shall write in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, my family's home these last twelve years. Anything new I may write will be written somewhere in Michigan, after our return to our home state after such a long absence. Some of that final work will be forthcoming in the months ahead, but two little pieces managed to appear within eight hours of each other (not good pacing, Wilson!). I hope you will enjoy a little tribute to two great writers under one title: "O Rare Ben Jonson," and also my review of Sohrab Ahmari's important new book, The Unbroken Thread, which appears in the latest issue of National Review. Click below to read them now.

On the far side of that move I will also continue with the founding of the new MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas, in Houston. There has been much good and generous publicity for and attention given to this new institution; it is not only hopes that are pinned on its flourishing, but those of many who want to see an improved and richer age of thought, literature, and culture within American society and within the Catholic Church. If you have any interest in joining us, in supporting us, or simply in learning more about what we are up to, do not hesitate to drop me a line through the contact page of this web site.

O Rare Ben Jonson

A Review of "The Unbroken Thread" by Sohrab Ahmari

]]><![CDATA[Fighting for things worth loving]]>Tue, 18 May 2021 14:28:12 GMThttps://www.jamesmatthewwilson.com/latest-news/fighting-for-things-worth-lovingThis last week, it has been my distinct pleasure to fight for things worth loving: the Church and Her Saints; the academy and the joy of wonder; the human person as a being made for more than petty bodily pleasures. Click on the icons below to read my latest in The Wall Street Journal, Public Discourse, and Genealogies of Modernity.

St. Junipero Serra, Founding Father

Intellectual Diversity Is Not All Academia Needs

Sex Is Not a Metaphor

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