Poet and political historian Diana Anhalt moved to Mexico with her family in 1950, where her parents joined a community of left-wing expatriates who’d left the U.S. to escape Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist persecutions. She would live there for the next 50 years. The full text of her nonfiction book A Gathering of Fugitives: American
Two Poems from Diana Anhalt’s “Lives of Straw” Read More »
In this second post in my occasional series on abuse survivors in the church, I’d like to reflect on some of the spiritual gifts that have emerged through my recovery, and how the church could offer greater scope for them to be exercised. It’s a delicate matter even to frame the issue this way. Our
Survivors in Church: Our Spiritual Gifts Read More »
Lent gives Christians a refreshing opportunity to bring the topic of sin out into the open. In this season, we’re reminded that Christ’s love takes away our shame and sets us free to be honest. Hopefully this invitation generates not only personal repentance but critical thinking about what we consider sinful, and why. Contemplating the
Good Christians Don’t Feel… Read More »
Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. The French proverb sums up the conventional story arc of healing and closure, encountered repeatedly in inspirational articles and literary novels that take on the difficult subject of abuse. The survivors in these stories are depicted as stuck in pain and anger from the past until they discover their perpetrator’s
The Questionable Value of an Abuser’s Back-Story Read More »
Quentin Crisp. Queen Elizabeth I. And me. Last week I joined the ranks of fabulous faux redheads, thanks to Robin LaFleur at Hair Etc. in Northampton. I’ve always been entranced by red hair. From second grade through freshman year in high school, I had a ridiculous crush on a boy several grades ahead of me,
We all remember those moments when a work of art opened our eyes and ears. Those “I didn’t know you could do that!” moments fill us with an uncontainable, restless excitement to respond in some way with a creative outpouring of our own, only we don’t yet have the words to express what we’ve encountered.
Murder Ballad Monday: Beatlemania Edition Read More »
Survivors in Church: A Preamble Welcome to the first post in a multi-part series about trauma survivors in the church. Topics will include common triggers in the church environment and their effects on survivors’ participation; how the church’s beliefs, particularly its picture of human nature, can either be healing or re-traumatizing; pastoral care for survivors;
Survivors in Church: Between Covenant and Choice Read More »
I’m pleased to share the latest installment in the “City Elegy” series of prose-poems by my prison pen pal “Conway”. I was particularly struck by the metaphors he uses to describe the Los Angeles streetscape. That’s first-class noir. As I interpret the line about the “confidential lunatic’s serenade”, he’s alluding to the confidential “evidence” that
New Poetry by Conway: “City Elegy V” Read More »
Charlie Bondhus’s masterful, heart-wrenching new poetry collection, All the Heat We Could Carry (Main Street Rag, 2013), could not have been written in any previous generation. In the closeted centuries following the Greco-Roman era, the poetry of gay male love and the poetry of war have only been permitted to overlap in sublimated and metaphorical
Charlie Bondhus: War Poet for the Post-DADT Era Read More »