I am thrilled to see my poem "Stargazer" in the just-released issue of Constellations.

In the excerpt from the Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem below, Norman H. MacKenzie notes that "just as Mary embraced and nurtured Christ, so does the air nestle every hair and snowflake, nourishing even the least significant living creature." Feed your spirit. Don't let You-Know-Who drag you down.

Poet Elinor Wylie reminds us that snow doesn't always mean storms and destruction.

If for no other reason, the use of "pavane" to describe the falling of snowflakes, "half lured to heaven yet."

"Save the gerund and screw the whale" — Tom Stoppard, "The Real Thing" (July 3, 1937 - November 29, 2025) #SundaySentence

Leave it to John Updike to express the after-holiday ennui when the anticipation has dissipated, and reality sets in, "when marriages closed in on themselves like flowers from which the sun is withdrawn."

Here's a beautiful Thanksgiving Day poem by the great Sharon Olds to help you forget that turkey in Mar-a-Lago.

Remember that Trump always had the power to release the Epstein files. He never needed to rely on Congress to do so. So why the machinations? Why all this folderol about Congress releasing them—or not? The answer might be in the files.

"Life is all conjunctions, one damn thing after another, cows and wars and chewing gum and mountains; art—the best, most important art—is all subordination: guilt because of sin because of pain" — John Gardner, "On Moral Fiction" #SundaySentence

John Updike wrote stand-alone poetry in addition to that intertwining his prose. Here is his tribute to a Bendix, the first automatic home washing machine. And I love his use of the word "jugged" meaning imprisoned, with an overtone of a rabbit stewed or boiled in a covered pot.

Such a tribute to the life force. Things move, like Wordsworth's Lucy, "roll’d round in earth’s diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees." Sometimes they even breathe.

"There were some things that had to come in time if they were to come at all. If they didn't come in time, they were lost forever ... live all you can; it's a mistake not to." — Henry James, "The Ambassadors"

I wonder how many people at Trump's ostentatious Gatsby party over the weekend had actually read "The Great Gatsby"? I know of at least one who hasn't (upper right corner).

So true.

At long last the month of November, where my book, "Babe in the Woods," is featured in my publisher's calendar.

"When spring comes / we promise to act/ the fool" — from Rita Dove's magnificent "November for Beginners." I used to see Ms. Dove at Arizona State University when she was a creative writing professor and I an adjunct.

Today is John Keats's birthday. As the incomparable Helen Vendler has written in reference to Keats's "Ode to Autumn," "[Therein] the work of creation...is illimitable: there are always more boughs to bless, more honeycombs to fill, more flowers to be brought to bud." #JohnKeats

National Chocolate Day is actually tomorrow, but in these crazy times, let's start celebrating a day early. Here's a poem by Barbara Crooker extolling the wonders of such a divine confection. "Chocolate stays up late and gambles, / likes roulette. Always bets / on the noir."

I'm taking a break from the weekly participation in the best sentence I've read all week and celebrated on Sundays online. Why? I read a lot—and deeply—but sometimes I don't come across a sentence that is both substantive and stylish, which I feel should be the basis for selecting it.

My blog post about the need for the humanities—especially literature—in schools so we aren't a nation of machines. Too many schools use the markets as a touchstone--the results? Lack of critical thinking, no reflection, inability to maintain a democracy. www.judehopkinswriting.net/post/what-do...

In the poem "Binsey Poplars," G.M. Hopkins bemoans the thoughtless cutting down of a row of aspen trees that were beautiful to him. The sentiment is the same in a more-recent event in which something beautiful was heedlessly demolished: "O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew."

Trump was required to get permission from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area, before gutting the East Wing of the White House for the ballroom, NPR said. And, he did not. Because he is king.

Jackson reminds us that "the summer, pale, / Steals back alone for one more song and dance." And those performances are numbered.

Although we are glad to see a possible ending of the Hamas-Israel war to end the killing, perhaps the next peace deal Trump brokers can be the one between the two warring divisions in America that he is largely responsible for.

Just some searing images from T.E. Hulme to keep you believing.

Just heard from my doctor that Medicare is no longer paying for Tele-Health (Zoom) visits. Just the beginning, I fear. Another cruel cut from an administration that cares nothing for patients' health.

I had to give up the role of hoping to inspire others to do things I had had such joy in, i.e., reading wonderful books and even writing one. Most people just want to be left alone, content not to be someone upon whom nothing is lost.

Such images -- all backing up "So much was golden then" and "Schools can be winged things." Imagination needs to be looked after, too.

"By way of imposing meaning upon our disparate American experience, the novelist seeks to create forms in which acts, scenes and characters speak for more than their immediate selves" — Ralph Ellison, Introduction to "Invisible Man" #SundaySentence

These three congressmen told then-president Richard Nixon that he had lost congressional support and would be impeached if he stayed. They used the Constitution as their North Star. Where are such men today? Gutless, spineless traitors to the Constitution. That's where they are.

It's William Faulkner's birthday. He reminds us that America can produce people of genius. Here, a passage from "Absalom, Absalom!" reminds us that sparrows can produce a "cloudy flutter." Think about it.

It's always so worthwhile—and joyful—to revisit Dorothea Krook's insightful analysis of James's "'vessels of consciousness' who are exposed to the impact of living experience and fully cognisant [sic] of the operation and effect of that experience."

"The apples are everywhere; you pick them up from under your feet but to bite into them, for fellowship; you catch their young brightness in the blue air where they suggest strings of strange-colored pearls tangled in the knotted boughs, swarming for a...wasted gaiety” — Henry James #SundaySentence

What a mirthless world this would be if these are the only two TV comics left.

"The whole aspect of the scene had that depressing effect on Jude that few places can produce like a taproom on a Sunday evening when the setting sun is slanting in, and no liquor is going, and the unfortunate wayfarer finds himself with no other haven of rest" — Thomas Hardy #SundaySentence

"Whatever distracting concoction someone has come up with in a fluorescent-light-filled Palo Alto mega-office has absolutely nothing on the joy, wonder, and meaning that creativity can bring" — Amie McNee, "We Need Your Art" #SundaySentence

Let me get this straight: It's unacceptable if a federal judge makes a decision that shoots down one of Trump's authoritarian orders, using the Constitution as evidence, but it's OK if Trump threatens Congress members if they vote to forward release of the Epstein files. Just because. Right?

A poem for Bill Belichick after his debut as coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, who were defeated 48-14.

Any reports of this award should be accompanied by an asterisk next to his name.

Happy September 1 and the advent of fall. John Updike captured the moment.

"We should never maltreat our idols: the gilding rubs off on our fingers" — Gustave Flaubert, "Madame Bovary" #SundaySentence

Let's apply Ernest Becker's profound thoughts on how people beat back the fear of death and seek to appear heroic, above death. The anti-vaxxers lie to themselves that by not vaxxing, they are symbolic HEROES, cosmically special and distinctive compared to the rest of us sheep. Dangerous belief.

Politico estimates the cost of the Nat'l Guard in L.A. to have been $134 million. Cost of deployment in Washington, D.C., is estimated to be $1 million a day. Now, if he goes into Chicago and other blue-state cities? That's a lot of Medicaid, a lot of food stamps, a lot of grants for art ... .

"She said that would be lovely, and her lashes fluttered like a brace of hysterical butterflies" — Robert Penn Warren, "All the King's Men" #SundaySentence

Beware of coarse people who do not do nuance.

"You can read merely to pass the time, or you can read with an overt urgency, but eventually you will read against the clock" — Harold Bloom, "How to Read and Why" #SundaySentence

Such an important consideration— poetic restraint—in this mawkish world, full of sentimentality and overkill, as if people can't get the point otherwise. I love the poetic example used below to show us how restraint can be beautiful and moving.

True.

Read this editorial. The author says people now prefer "visual memes, fake news, real news, clickbait, sometimes hostile misinformation and, increasingly, a torrent of A.I.-generated slop content" to nuanced, deep reading. The result? Oligarchy becomes easier. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...

Such a lovely and insightful quotation, Vicki.