Conversion and redemption are both important aspects of religion, and these terms can also be useful in other, more secular realms. What does it mean to be redeemed? How can religion, or some other force, offer us a second chance? The following poems explore the issues of conversion and redemption in different ways, dating from
Literature
July 13, 2022, 2:46pm On July 13, 1930, some six thousand people crammed themselves into London’s Royal Albert Hall. They had come to hear a missive from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the spiritualist, physician, and creator of Sherlock Holmes—who had, as it happens, died six days previous. The hall had been rented out by the
When I was eight or nine, my grandmother was living in a house in a sleepy Essex suburb. I often visited her with my younger siblings in tow, and we used to spend much of our stay in the garden. Granny’s garden was her pride and joy, kept as neat as a guardsman’s coat, the
‘The Other Side of the Hedge’ is a short story by E. M. Forster (1879-1970), who is probably best-known for novels like Howards End and A Passage to India. However, Forster was also a master of the short story and used the form to explore some of his more metaphysical ideas about humanity, progress, technology,
July 12, 2022, 12:32pm Remember Jeremy Meeks, aka “Prison Bae”? Sure you do. The former Crip and current fashion model became a viral sensation back in 2014 when the Stockton Police Department posted his extremely handsome mugshot on Facebook. Within 24 hours Meeks’ photo had acquired more than 15,000 “likes” and 3,700 comments, mostly (as
For my characters, most of whom are orphaned, living in the shadow of their parents’ demise, d becomes the belvedere from which they discern life. To research, I uneasily indulged myself in a long and saturnine literary tradition. It wasn’t hard to start. A train of titles seemed to mark our obsession: Chronicle of a
The eighteenth-century poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is not the most fashionable English poet: few people read his poetry for pleasure, one suspects, and even in universities he is not as popular or central to the canon as he once was. With his Augustan rationalism and his perfectly crafted heroic couplets, his love of chiasmus and
By Katie Yee July 11, 2022, 1:25pm Our reproductive rights are being stripped away, but perhaps this bit of nice news will help: there are some good-hearted writers doing what they can to help the situation. The Authors for Abortion Access are having an auction (which starts tomorrow and runs through July 26), and the proceeds will
Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Ed Yong, author of An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us. Find
TODAY: In 1947, the writer Jenny Diski is born. Andrew Keen asks if there’s a model for political change in 21st-century America. | Lit Hub Politics “You have to excise the preciousness from within yourself, that vision of yourself as a great and important author, before you can write freely in your own voice.”
July 8, 2022, 9:57am It’s not great when half the state legislatures in the country continue to test how far they can go with crypto-fascist legislation—but with an extremist Supreme Court on your side, why not give it a shot, right? In what seems like a truly baffling violation of the First Amendment, Florida’s “Stop
TODAY: In 1933, British author and neurologist Oliver Sacks is born. Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of (the second half of) 2022—or, 230 books to read before 2023. | Lit Hub Reading Lists Gabriel Pasquini peeps into the world of Doug Metzger, and his “extraordinary, dogged, lonely—perhaps hubristic?—quest” to host the most ambitious literary podcast in the world. | Lit
July 8, 2022, 10:11am Well, here’s something to distract us from the terrifyingly rapid collapse of the house of straw that is America! A reality competition show about the most interesting people on earth [citation needed]: WRITERS. That’s right—all our Twitter-based jokes about America’s Next Top Sad Literary Man seem to have summoned forth… America’s
Previously, we picked ten of the best poems about flowers, to create a kind of anthology: the word ‘anthology’ stemming, we might recall, from the Greek for ‘collection of flowers’. Now, it’s the turn of that most emblematic flower: the rose. Roses are a common feature of love poetry, and are often associated with romance
July 8, 2022, 12:16pm Yep, as the guy in your MFA already knows, turns out reading literary fiction is better for you than reading other kinds of fiction—especially if you grew up doing it. In a new paper published this week in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, scholars Nicholas Buttrick, Erin C. Westgate, and
July 7, 2022, 12:21pm If you’ve been on Twitter over the past couple of days, you’ve likely seen a lot of random, cool art. Especially if you’re following Brandon Taylor. The source of it all is DALL•E, an “AI model generating images from any prompt!” …Any prompt you say? Just for fun, I decided to run a
The Battle of Jericho was the first battle fought by the Israelites during the course of their conquest of Canaan. Joshua leads the people of Israel in an attack on the ancient walled city, bringing the colossal walls of Jericho down with the sound of trumpets, according to the Book of Joshua from the Old
July 7, 2022, 12:31pm In June, award-winning indie publisher Graywolf Press announced the retirement of Fiona McCrae, who had served as Director and Publisher of the Minneapolis nonprofit for twenty-eight years. Since then, the rest of the wolves have been on the lookout for a new pack leader, and it now appears that they’ve found