JAMES MATTHEW WILSON
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Against the "Loose Epicurean" Spirit of Liberalism

3/22/2020

 
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I have two items for your attention, today, one you may have already seen, but another, from a small magazine, that you likely cannot discover anyplace else.  The first is "The Post-Liberal Moment," in The American Mind, a short essay and riposte to a dreadful article about "Reocons" that was published a couple weeks back. Readers have written to say how timely and helpful it is; as I read it, even with the last-minute addition of references to the coronavirus, it seems already somewhat dated. I do hope it will prove useful to many, in any case. Click the TAM logo at the bottom of this posting to read.

The second item is an interview I gave to a small magazine called The Scholastic. Next week marks the one-year anniversary of my colleague Colleen Sheehan and my editorial in the Wall Street Journal confronting head-on the inane new policies Villanova University has put in place as its cute, personal contribution to the triumph of identity politics and the despoliation of the higher learning.

Our editorial was met with widespread protest by our colleagues, many of whom had opposed the policy until they learned that we opposed it as well. At that time, they felt obliged to sign a petition giving a full-throated endorsement to the erosion of their and our academic freedoms. I found their whole display comical, or shall I say it was sad but in the sense of inducing laughter rather than weeping?

Despite these protests, Colleen and I were partially successful in so far as we got the University to almost entirely limit the use and distribution of the new "diversity" questions that were inserted into the course evaluations students are asked to complete at the end of every semester. The University's highest officials claimed the questions were "never" intended for use in faculty evaluation. This was untrue or, in laymen's terms, a lie. But to make good on that lie, they did at least part of what we were asking for. We continue to press for the complete elimination of such questions, though, along with everyone else, we have other things to worry about just now.

The Scholastic asked me to talk about the controversy and to discuss the nature of liberal education in light of my work as a poet. It is my hope that what I say in the interview will be of substantial value even when -- as it surely must -- the shameful occasion of it will have long been forgotten. I notice, alas, a number of typos in the interview; consider them signs of small-magazine authenticity. Click the picture of St. Thomas, our greatest scholastic, to read. 

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Staring down Socrates

3/17/2020

 
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I make my debut in the much celebrated Notre Dame Church Life Journal with a new essay, "The Catholic Poet in a Neo-Pagan Age." This is the fourth prose piece I've published in the last several weeks that examines directly or indirectly how we are to see the world and to engage it, in terms of our everyday metaphysics or our everyday approach to poetry and the arts.

The title here is flippant, but I think opens up a new line of thinking.

Click the logo to read.

Smiling at Beauty: Here's how I came to think the things that I think

3/15/2020

 
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When I received the Hiett Prize, just over two years ago, I was given a chance to reflect on what I have done as a poet and scholar over the last two decades. It is a rare honor indeed to be given such a patient hearing, as I was that day in November, surrounded not just by hundreds in the audience, but by much of my family as well.

I have since revised the comments into an essay called "Rediscovering the Form of Things: On My Work to Date," and Catholic World Report has generously published it just this weekend. Click on CWR to read the essay or, if you prefer, look below and see and hear its first delivery for yourself.

Tuning the Instruments

3/9/2020

 
After a quiet week or so, James Matthew Wilson is back already with new items for your attention. My latest column in The Catholic Things, "Eyes to See," is a short narrative essay of which I'm quite proud; it is one of those pieces where the author learns at least as much from the composition as the reader may take from the reception. Second, The Benedict XVI Institute's Catholic Arts Today begins its long-promised serial publication of the poems from The River of the Immaculate Conception. Especially nice is that the poems will be published along with photographs from the first celebration of The Mass of the Americas, for which it was written.

I should have two more items, two major essays, appear very shortly, and will simply add them to this list, when they appear. Taken together, all these things will flesh out what I have been trying to do as a writer lo these last fifteen years and more. Click on the logos below to read.
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Of Past and Future Things

2/17/2020

 
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The last week was full of blessings.  I got to share a retrospect on the first annual Colosseum Summer Institute and a prospect for the kind of literary culture the Institute is committed to promoting, in my latest column in The Catholic Thing.  Click the TCT to read, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Colosseum."

The first reviews of The River of the Immaculate Conception have begun to appear, and they constitute some warm and intelligently argued endorsements.  Daniel Rattelle considers the poem in a new review in First Things (click the F to read), while Katy Carl offers a historical and critical analysis of where the poem fits in the American tradition, literary and beyond, in the pages of Dappled Things (click the DT to read). Dappled Things also includes in its new issue, not only this fine review, but the interview Roseanne Sullivan conducted with me about the composition of River.  Click the RIC cover to read.

Tomorrow, I speak to the Catholic Artists Society, at the Catholic Center of NYU.  This kicks off a busy spring and summer season of readings and lectures and I hope you will join me at any that come to your neck of the woods. Check back here often, as I have new essays and poems due in print almost weekly from here until the end of summer.  I hope you'll find something worth the reading.

2019-2020 Readings and Lectures Calendar

1/30/2020

 
Please Note: Winter, Spring, and Summer dates are still in formation, but almost full.  Please visit below to see what is coming up and where I'll be during the coming seasons.

This year promises to be the busiest yet for me, as I hopscotch from place to place to talk about poetry and beauty and, meanwhile, also give a series of readings, including several to promote my new book, The River of the Immaculate Conception, a long poem comprehending the whole history of Catholicism in America, in lyric and narrative chapters.

​Although my available travel dates are filling up quickly, these sorts of visits are a real delight for me, and so I invite those who are interested in hosting me for a reading or a lecture to drop me a line via the Contact page on this website.

I'll be speaking at several private events, at Eastern University and at Villanova, but what follows below are events open to the general public. Click on the images to the left, which link to fuller descriptions of the events (as they become available).
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September 18 (Wednesday), 7:00, Beauty, the Foundation of the West, the University of St. Francis annual Alverno Lecture (Achatz Hall of Science, Parkview Physicians Group Auditorium, Rm 226; 2701 Spring St., Fort Wayne, Indiana).
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September 21 (Saturday), 2:00, a poetry reading as part of the Future of the Catholic Imagination Conference, at Loyola University (Damon Den, Lakeshore Campus).
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October 14 (Monday) 7:30, a poetry reading, hosted by Painted Bride Quarterly (Black Sheep Pub upstairs, 247 S. 17th St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
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October 19 (Saturday), TBD, Sneering at Beauty, a keynote address at the sympsium on Christianity and Literature, at Misericordia University (Dallas, Pennsylvania).
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November 15 (Friday), 5:30, a poetry reading as part of the Contemporary Catholic Writers series, at the Catholic University of America (TBD).  You can register for this free program by clicking the picture at left.
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November 16 (Saturday), Ongoing events 2:00-7:00 p.m.  The Benedict XVI Institute conference, in celebration of the National Basilica premier of the Mass of the Americas, will host a day of events, including a poetry workshop with me (open to all), a public interview with me and others on the future of the arts in the Church, and the official launch and book signing of The Mass of the Immaculate Conception​.  This is not to be missed. Click the book cover to register for the Mass and/or the after-conference.
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February 18 (Tuesday), 6:00 (reception), 7:00, a lecture delivered to the Catholic Artists Society (New York City).
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POSTPONED: This event will be rescheduled for the fall.
March 24 (Tuesday), 6:00 p.m. Sponsored by First Things and The King's College. A conversation with Jessica Hooten Wilson, James Matthew Wilson, and Dana Gioia.
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POSTPONED: This event will be rescheduled for the fall.
March 27 (Friday), 6:30 p.m.. A reading from The River of the Immaculate Conception and The Hanging God​, at Aquinas College (Loutit Room, Wege Building).
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POSTPONED: This event will be rescheduled for the fall.March 28 (Saturday), TBD.  Lecture as part of a Day of Study at the St. Benedict Institute, Hope College (Holland, Michigan).
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April 25 (Saturday), 7:00 p.m., Lansing Catholic Central.  Address to Lumen Veritis​ (Lansing, MI).
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May 9 (Saturday), TBD. Crusade Channel, Second Annual Chivalry Conference (New Jersey).
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July 15-18, TBD, Select Seminars at the CiRCE Institute annual conference (Charleston, SC).

The Love of God: New Poems and Essays

1/25/2020

 
It has been a fairly crowded several weeks, for me, in terms of new publications, with the most exciting development being the series of podcasts I have recorded with Thomas V. Mirus. (You can visit those by clicking the Catholic Culture icon below.) I at last have a moment to gather together my recent written publications and, to round them off, a recording I made of one of the newly published poems, "The Love of God."  Scroll down to explore.
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You can hear the "Mirus Sessions" as I call them by clicking at left.
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The annual issue of the Alabama Literary Review has been published in print and will soon be released online.  For the present, click this icon to read the four poems I have in the issue: "At Season's End," "The Love of God," "In the Fullness of Rhyme," and "The Wisdom of Old Men." Clicking at left will open up a new window with the poems in a pdf file.
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Poetry is as much an oral as a written art.  Click here to hear me recite "The Love of God," one of my simplest poems but with a most complex rhythm.
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Among the greatest living Catholic writers of our day stands Paul Mariani.  Click here to read my retrospective essay on his work, which culminates in a review of his two most recent books.
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And, finally, if you somehow missed my more recent column in The Catholic Thing, please click here to read, "There Is No Secular Culture."  It was possible, for a time, to suppose that the modern age would culminate in a form of civilization just like those of the past but with somewhat more immanent concerns, straddled somewhere between Arnold's liberal humanism and Nietzsche's Last Man.  It turns out, neither of those was viable, and this short essay helps explain why. I am glad they were not viable, of course.  Who could not be consoled to know that David Bentley Hart was correct, when he proclaimed the choice of our day is between "Christ or Nothing"?

The Mirus Sessions

1/23/2020

 
I do not think any of us foresaw this, but over the last two months, I've held several recorded conversations with Thomas V. Mirus, for his CatholicCulture.org podcast series.  First, on The River of the Immaculate Conception, then on my unexpected collaboration with the Catholic painter Andrew de Sa, and finally, in a series of three afternoons, on The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition.

Both admirers and detractors of that latter book have commented it is dense and difficult.  That was certainly not the intent of the author, but Vision  was a book written in conversation over many years, and as the conversation with fellow writers deepened, the book began to bear the imprint of that depth.  I think the argument of the book is one that every person, without exception, needs to hear; it is a book that attempt to recapitulate the wisdom of our tradition that instructs us all how to be more fully human and to live lives of transcendent, finally sacred, purpose.  How pleased I am, therefore, to share the three interviews on Vision, along with the previous two, in hopes that those who might be put off by the book might still get a sense of its bigger claims.  We were pretty thorough.  I hope you enjoy them.  Click on the icon at left to hear a particular episode.

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Episode 57: ​The River of the Immaculate Conception
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Episode 60: The Princeton Event for St. Cecilia, and how Andrew de Sa and James Matthew Wilson came, by accident, to influence one another.
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Episode 61: Liberal Anti-Culture and the Western Vision of the Soul ​
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Episode 63: Beauty Reveals Being ​
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Episode 65: Reason with Stories, Philosophize with Your Life

New Year's Resolutions and Retrospects

1/1/2020

 
Those days I set aside to read some spiritual work for no reason other than my own edification, especially if I vow also to let a football game play just over the crown of my book, those are the days I end up not getting to sit down for a moment until the day itself is all spent and it is time to join the family for dinner.

This feast of Mary, the Mother of God, has been one of those days.

I can still share a few thoughts, prospective and retrospective, however.  This site is dedicated to providing a place where the interested reader can come across my published work, wherever it happens to appear, and so it seems appropriate to mention some incidental details in that regard.  If current paces continue, sometime in the coming year, I should publish my two-hundredth poem in a magazine, my two-hundredth essay, and my one-hundredth book review.

I got to read quite a bit this last year.  If you click the F below, you will find a short list of three big, chunky books that I recommend you include in your reading this coming year.  It is included in First Things magazine's annual year in books feature.

Robert Royal asked authors at The Catholic Thing to provide their predictions for the coming year and decade.  I was happy to oblige, nay, joyful.  Click the TCT to hear from many authors, including yours truly, who believes that, in defiance of fate, we are "Destined for Joy."

One prospect about which I am particularly hopeful is the continued work of the Colosseum Institute.  As we prepare for our second annual Colosseum Summer Institute, to be held at Villanova University, this June, I invite you to explore our work by clicking the Colosseum below.  Join us in June!  Or support our work, so that we can provide scholarships for worthy applicants.


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What you don't want to find under your tree . . .

12/24/2019

 
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The Wilsons have made their inglorious return to Michigan to celebrate the holy days now upon us, and that leaves little time for updates on my latest publications, and yet, there have been some, and so I make quick note of them now.

First of all, in the pages of National Review, one of the very few poems of light verse I have published appears in the new issue: "A Rocking Chair Song."  As the headline here indicates, you do not want to find what it describes in its first stanza under your tree.  The rest of the poem might be all right.  Click the NR to read it.

Next and last, my review essay of the latest edition of previously uncollected letters by Flannery O'Connor appears in the new issue of The American Conservative.  Although the general timber of the review is appreciative, I had some serious objections to the editorial practice found in the new volume, and so I am somewhat sorry to say the editor probably won't want to find this under the tree, much though I admired so much of his work.  Click the TAC​ to read: the link is to the complete digital edition, which is free online, but of course requires you to scroll through to page 49.

Marquette, Michigan, and Me (and One More)

12/10/2019

 
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I am pleased to report that First Things magazine has published a short essay of mine on "America as a Catholic Country."  It contemplates the Catholic character of our country particularly as that found expression in my long poem, The River of the Immaculate Conception. I'm told that reviews of that book are soon to appear, but for the moment, perhaps you will enjoy hearing a little about what one can learn from listening to one's first teachers (click the icon to read the whole thing):​

For Michigan, surrounded by the Great Lakes, was among the places the French missionaries and traders came centuries ago, moving by canoe along the navigable bodies of water, to encounter the Indians, trade with them, live alongside them, and instruct them in the gospel. This communion of the French Jesuits with the Indians was one of several founding moments of America. The Jesuits at every opportunity consecrated places and events to Our Lady, no such instance of which is more striking than Jacques Marquette’s naming the Mississippi the River of the Immaculate Conception. Through these acts of prayer, this offering of the land to the Mother of God, they consecrated America, piece by piece, as a Catholic country.
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If it is not too much to mention America as a Catholic country and the North American Anglican in the same place, let me also make the following announcement.  In keeping with my more or less fortuitous practice of pairing new prose pieces with recently published poems, let me conclude by providing a link to "Sunlight," a very short poem of mine that has just been published in the North American Anglican magazine.  It is one of five poems to be published online, in that magazine, over the next several months, and which will be collected in a new anthology, to be released soon.

Poetic Anticipations

12/6/2019

 
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For those of you who wish to add a little poetry into your Advent season, I am pleased to let you know that my performance of "The Christmas Preface" was broadcast on the Mike Church show yesterday.  The show very kindly made a small podcast of just the performance, which you can access by clicking the icon to the left.

I want to thank Mike personally for his show's commitment to serious Catholic spirituality, devotion, and tradition, and to the effort to build up a richer Catholic culture among the faithful.  It's not every radio host who will say -- as Mike has many times now -- sure, let's have a poet come on the show and read his poems.  That, my friends, is how one bridges the terrible chasm that has opened up in recent decades between politics, religion, and the arts.  Let's hope for more of it in the new liturgical year.

A Conversation about The River of the Immaculate Conception

12/3/2019

 
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Thomas Mirus was kind enough to host me on his CatholicCulture.org podcast this last week, the first of a few we plan to record about my work in poetry and philosophy.  Click the icon at left to listen.  We talked about the art of poetry, the composition of The River of the Immaculate Conception, and he asked me to read for sections of the poem, including my story of Jacques Marquette and the Mississippi.

Go Deeper

11/17/2019

 
By happy coincidence, sitting on my desk this afternoon is Robert Royal's great book, A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.  I have a few items to share here whereby you can go deeper into my work as a poet, should you be so inclined.  Scroll on down and see what there is to be discovered.

First, the Benedict XVI Institute has commissioned a series of short films about my work, the first one officially releasing today.
The new issue of First Things contains my poem, based on an ancient Christian prayer, "Elizabeth to her Cousin."  Click the FT icon to read.
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My latest column for The Catholic Thing takes up the theme of the nature of art and the role and purpose of the artist.  It is appropriately called, "The Law of Art."  Click the TCT to read.
Finally, while I was back home at Notre Dame, last week, to conduct a public interview with the great filmmaker, Whit Stillman, I got to sit down for my own interview with Ken Hallenius on the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture Cast.  We chatted about poetry, the Midwest, Catholicism, and concluded with a reading of the seventh part of my long poem, The River of the Immaculate Conception​.  Click the CEC to listen.
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If you have not gone too deep for your tastes already into the world of James Matthew Wilson, then why not click the book cover at left, and pick up your own copy of The River of the Immaculate Conception​?

Temporal and Eternal, Australian and Elephantine

11/1/2019

 
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As was the case the other week, this week I have both new poetry and a new essay to share with the interested reader and they make for a curious mix.

Just this morning, Law and Liberty published my reflection on the work of French poet, essayist, Catholic, and anarchist Charles Peguy in light of our present ostensible return of the "strong gods."  It asks some pointed consequences of Christian humanism and our present, secular world order (such as it is). I think it answers a few important questions as well about the nature of piety and the place of nationalism.  Click the L&L logo to read, "Just Before the Return of the Strong Gods."

Speaking of the world and its nations, there's a whole other side to it, and from that side I continue to be amazed that people don't simply fall off and disappear into space, because, for goodness' sake, it's upside down!  Feel the same way yourself?  Well, then read my new poem, "Australia" by clicking on the Forma​ logo.

If marsupials are not your bag, then imagine with me a sight at once more familiar, usual, and grand, that of the circus elephant.  My "On a Circus Elephant," the second-to-last of my All Things series to appear in print, has just been published in the new issue of America.  If you dare to ascent to, or ascend, its monolithic grandeur, simply click the big A.

​This post has been updated to add additional content.

Never tiring of John Crowe Ransom

10/16/2019

 
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For reasons I cannot wholly explain, I never tire of writing about John Crowe Ransom's poetry and criticism.  It is a touchstone for me, if not a model; that said, it is also a model from which I compulsively depart and to which I return with a critical eye.  This has gone on for quite awhile now.  I think Ransom, like Winters and Eliot, cuts so well the figure of the poet-critic and specifically of one who does not set a limit to how far into the world the critical enterprise can sojourn.  Further, there's a kind of minor status to his achievement of nonetheless important achievements; it gives one hope that one's own modest talents might reach a good end.

Forma has my latest on the complete poetry of Ransom, just published by Louisiana State University Press, I include a link here also to "Hard Truth," a little review essay on Ransom that appeared in The Weekly Standard, when the first variorum edition of his poetry was published just four years ago.

"And here she stands, that sculpted Goodness, mute"

10/10/2019

 
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It has been a busy, even hectic, month, as I went to Chicago for the Future of the Catholic Imagination Conference, where the advance copies of The River of the Immaculate Conception were made available for sale.  In consequence, I have not had much chance to post other items besides the publication announcement of the book and -- note well -- my lectures and readings, which includes some very exciting events next month, in Washington, D.C.  Please scroll down to learn more about those things.

But, now, I want to share something of graven seriousness; my new poem, "Waking in Dresden," has just been published in First Things magazine, one which I hope rightly balances reverence with despair and despair with hope.  Click the image that inspires the poem, above, to read it.

I will have other poems published this month, which I may append to this notice, but I did want to include a link to my most recent Catholic Thing column, a bit lighter fare I think, called "The Burnt Orange Carpet Liturgical Test."  Click the TCT icon to read.

"Beneath her mantle and her banner"

10/2/2019

 
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Every chance to bring some new work into the world is a grace and a blessing, but I am not the only one who feels the hand of providence at work in the appearance of this new book, a long poem that is a liturgy and history of Catholicism in North America, The River of the Immaculate Conception.

This is a limited edition printing of the poem published to commemorate the premiere of Frank LaRocca's glorious Mass of the Americas, which occurred December 8, 2018, at St. Mary's Cathedral, in San Francisco.  You can hear the Mass for yourself, whether on EWTN's recording of the event, or by attending one of the Masses themselves, as the Mass is held at various cathedrals around North America and, so I am told, at St. Peter's seat itself.

Click the cover to order your copy of River directly from the generous people at Wiseblood Books, who worked tirelessly to see that a beautiful book was produced.

See and Listen to New Poems in Evangelization & Culture, Plus One More

8/23/2019

 
Bishop Robert Barron's Word on Fire Institute has launched a new magazine.  Evangelization & Culture is a quarterly dedicated to culture and the fine arts.  I was asked to provide a couple poems for the inaugural issue, and my work was repaid by the beautiful illustrations drawn to accompany the poems.

I've included photos of the relevant pages below.  Click on "Seeds" to listen to me read the poem.  Click on the picture of "Vita Activa" for another exciting (as far as I'm concerned anyway) link: to Nick Ripatrazone's superb new review of my two books of poems.  If he doesn't convince you to take a look, I don't know what could.

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Click here to listen to "Seeds" read by James Matthew Wilson
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Click here to read Nick Ripatrazone's, "James Matthew Wilson, a Storyteller of Spiritual Anxiety"

The River of the Immaculate Conception

8/16/2019

 
By the close of business today, my next book, the long poem, The River of the Immaculate Conception, will be on its way to the printer.  The first copies will be given to sponsors of the Benedict XVI Institute, sometime in early September; the first copies for sale will be a small number made available at the Future of the Catholic Imagination Conference, at Loyola, Chicago, from September 19-21, 2019.  Finally, an official launch is being planned to coincide with the celebration of the Mass of the Americas in the extraordinary form at the National Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, on November 16, 2019.  Details on all of this will follow, but, this afternoon, I just wish to share the elegantly designed book cover, from Wiseblood Books.
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The Plenary Intelligence of Things

8/10/2019

 
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In this morning's Catholic Things, my monthly column discusses the range of reason and what it means to say that we know the reality of God and his creation of the world by what is normally called "natural reason."

The argument is, in part, a distillation of an early chapter of The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition, the remainder is precipitated from my mulling of work by Mark Shiffman and Robert Louis Wilken, over the last couple years.

Publishing a regular column invites misinterpretation by even well-intended readers, but it seems to draw cranks and crackpots out of the woodwork, and so I include here also a link to an early of essay of mine, "Steven Hawking Proves the Existence of God," that explains some of the summary statements in today's article.

Click on Logos to read "What Reason Must Know," and click the clam on the shore to find out what Hawking knew despite himself.

On the Water

8/8/2019

 
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A year ago on this day, I came in from canoeing with my daughter on the big pond on my family's vineyard estate and wrote a short poem.  A year to the day later, as I once again have climbed the hill from the pond with my daughter, I see that that poem, "On the Water," appears in the new issue of National Review.  It reminds me that, for all that has changed in this last year, nothing has changed.

One stanza in the poem gave me some trouble and that led me to reconsider some aspects of my practice of rhyme that in turn precipitated the massive revisions that became Some Permanent Things Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, not to mention an overall as I think elevation in my sense of how meter and good poetry is to be written. I hope the causes of despair in our present moment may prove, finally, only occasions for silence and reflection, before we once again push off in search of, and with the intention of restoring, the permanent things.

​Click the picture of the pond to read "On the Water."

Of Immanence and Transcendence

7/14/2019

 
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I have two recent prose pieces for you this week: the latest installment of my column for The Catholic Thing, on Michel de Montaigne and the decayed vision of the modern age, and a curiously apposite review of the poet and critic William Logan's new book of literary studies, Frost's Woods, Dickinson's Nerves, which appears in the latest issue of a promising new journal called Forma.  Click the logos to read.

The number of subscribers to my newsletter continues to grow and I plan to launch a slightly more well designed edition in the near future. If you follow this website and would like to receive updates on my latest publications, I encourage you to fill out the newsletter form on my Contact page.  In addition to news about what I'm publishing and where, you'll get the latest on Colosseum Books and on the Colosseum Institute.  The first Summer Institute was an unqualified success and we are looking to expand programming in the years ahead, to provide a place where those concerned with the craft of the fine arts and the things of the spirit can convene for good company and the sake of their work.

That peace we fear to seek

6/13/2019

 
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The consistently excellent magazine of the ALSCW, Literary Matters, has just released its latest issue, which includes, among many, many other items, a poem of mind, called "Sloth." This is the last in my series of four Sapphics to be published.  It begins,

When autumn came, my grandfather set up
Behind a metal desk in his garage,
With slender ballpeen hammer and curved pick
….. To hull and crack
The acrid mound of tennis-ball-sized husks
From which he freed those gnarled piths of black walnuts
Gathered beneath our trees the weeks before
….. And meant for this.
Click the logo above to read the whole thing.

First Newsletter

6/10/2019

 
In the interest of economy, I sent out, just this morning, a humble first newsletter to those who have registered for it through this website.  If you are interested in rare and periodic announcements and summaries of what work I am publishing, please visit the Forms page on this website and join the fun.  Alas, because of the design of this webpage, hyperlinks appear in white font, and so what looks like a Mad Lib below will in fact reveal itself, if your mouse simply scrolls over the apparently missing text.

Dear Friends,
After dawdling for more than a year, I thought it time to kick off the JamesMatthewWilson.com periodic newsletter, which will serve, as the website primarily serves, to provide news to interested readers about what and where my work has been appearing.  Feel free to pass this on to others who may find it of interest, and by all mean, encourage readers to visit the site; I have new work appearing about once a week, including my monthly column for The Catholic Thing and my ongoing series on Catholicism and poetry (and Catholic thought and literature more generally) for Catholic World Report.
This has been an unusually fruitful year, made possible in part by a year's leave to spend my days writing and studying.  By the end of the summer, I should have completed my next prose book, a scholarly work on literary modernism and Catholic philosophical theology, called Catholic Modernism and the Irish Avant-Garde.  If you had assumed that St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Blaise Pascal played little role in the making of modern poetry, you may be correct, but I shall show in this new book that for three unusually devout Irish modernist writers at least, the greatness of the Catholic tradition was thoroughly fused to their practice of an often cosmopolitan and complex modernist art.

In October, Angelico published my second full length collection of poems, The Hanging God.  The reception has so far been uniformly positive and enthusiastic: more than seven reviews have offered high praise of the volume.  You might begin with Frank Wilson's superb study of the poems (the link includes also my television interview, out in San Francisco, that touches on a number of matters).  Upon its publication, I felt obliged to revise my first book, Some Permanent Things, in order to correct the somewhat looser practice of rhyme and meter found in those poems and, at least, to bring into print the completed form of my sequence "The Christmas Preface."  Wiseblood issued Some Permanent Things Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, just before Christmas, and I've been thrilled by the response to this much revised, much reordered, significantly expanded version of the book; it strikes me as a new book altogether.  The response has been very positive, with the young poet Daniel Rattelle offering a brief, cogent study of some of my changes and why they bear fruit.
In a year of mostly good news, it is hard to pick just one more item to share with you, but I think it ought to be this.  The great poet Samuel Hazo and I convened in the Gentile Gallery, at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, at the end of April, to celebrate a new beginning.  Franciscan's University Press now publishes my book series, Colosseum Books, which will bring into print works of poetry and poetry criticism that demonstrate a commitment to serious craft and spiritual depth in the Catholic tradition.  Sam effectively is the author of the first three books in our series, his final collection of poems, When Not Yet Is Now, the publication sixty years on of his dissertation on Jacques Maritain and the poets (for which I wrote a lengthy critical introduction that provides a comprehensive account of Maritain as a Godfather to modern Catholic arts and letters), and, forthcoming, The Power of Less, a second, expanded edition of a book of Sam's literary essays that reflect on poetry with sophistication but in a familiar voice that will invite new readers into the conversation and life of this ancient, forbidding, but soul-transforming art.
As editor and director of Colosseum Books, I will build up a list of serious new work that every literate person will want to read; beginning this July, I shall direct the Colosseum Summer Institute, hosting aspiring writers for four days of discussion on the philosophy of art and beauty, the craft of prosody, and the practice of the art.
Thanks for your interest in these many endeavors, which are done at the service of the Church and the intellectual life in our day, when so much of the culture has turned against truth, goodness, and beauty in favor of an abyss of nihilistic rage and therapeutic consumerism.

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