Because of the internet’s democratization, who says something is becoming significantly less important than what is said.

Is this good or bad?

Tactics that make the gospel memorable are worthwhile—if they’re truly for the message, not the messenger.

More at The Evangelical Outpost.

Admission: Twenty-two words isn’t enough to be completely clear.

Defense: No matter how much an author writes, there will still be misunderstanding.

If [you’re] annoyed that someone out there is reading a book [you] don’t like, then here’s a suggestion: Write a better book.

-Michael Spencer

I don’t want to become that writer who expects people to be familiar with his work before he’ll interact about his ideas.

Prairie Home Companion is having a sonnet contest.

Grand prize: a sleep number bed.

They posted my silly submission on their site.

(Guest post from Karsten Piper)

These poets are writing with the beating muscle and translucent beauty that’s often missing from church libraries and waiting room magazine piles.

1. Scott Cairns ( “Adventures in New Testament Greek: Nous)
2. Lucille Clifton (”oh antic God“)
3. B.H. Fairchild (”Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest“)
4. Carolyn Forche (”The Memory of Elena“)
5. Tony Hoagland ( “America“)
6. Andrew Hudgins (”Blur“)
7. Mary Karr (”Descending Theology: The Resurrection“)
8. Brigit Pegeen Kelly (“Song“)
9. Yusef Komunyakaa (”Reflections“)
10. Li-Young Lee (”Eating Together“)
11. Thomas Lux (”Render, Render“)
12. Naomi Shihab Nye (”Blood“)
13. Mary Oliver (”White-Eyes“)
14. Don Paterson (”Luing“)
15. Jack Prelutsky(”A Wolf Is at the Laundromat“)
16. Michael Symmons Roberts (”Jairus“)
17. Kay Ryan (”All Shall Be Restored“)
18. Charles Simic (”Fork“)
19. Cathy Song (”Heaven“)
20. A.E. Stallings (”Four Fibs“)
21. Franz Wright (”The Face“)
22. Adam Zagajewski (”Self-Portrait“)

Properly, you analyze to enjoy, but it is equally true that to analyze with any discrimination, you have to have enjoyed already.

Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners, 108

Last week I heard Hemant Mehta speak about “selling his soul on eBay.” He offers a winsome outsider’s perspective on Christian subculture.

D. H. Lawrence:

[Americans] are always busy “about” something. But truly immersed in doing something, with… deep blood-consciousness active…they never are.

(Studies in Classic American Literature, 86)

(A Review by Karsten Piper of Corpus, poems by Michael Symmons Roberts.)

Pelt, salt, seeds, genes, chilly viscera, familiar scars, warm carnivorous feasting, smoking, sipping. Here is your body on the slab, and resurrected.

[Asking an author] “What did you mean by this book?” is to invite bafflement: the book itself is what the writer means.

Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, 45

(American Pastoral, Philip Roth)

A successful businessman deals with his daughter’s political terrorism.

+ Incisively discerns the importance and insufficiency of family.
- Brief boring stretches. Occasionally obscene.

Redemption is certain eternally, but now hopelessness really exists.

That’s warrant enough for stories to be as unredemptive as life sometimes is.

How does Paul know what can be interpreted allegorically? Does he have license to find behind-the-scenes meaning in any story? Do we?