[Magdalen] summer reading

[ME Michaud]

I like to check the required reading list for incoming freshmen.
(FYI I’m so old that the 1928 BCP, particularly the psalter and the
collects, was on mine.)

Last year: This is your brain on music (Daniel Levitin).
This year: Primer for poets and readers of poetry (Gregory Orr).

Good book. Definitely for youngsters, though,
Aside from a very apt comparison of lyric & narrative poetry to sculpture
(lyric poetry=carving, cutting away to reveal the image inside the block,
narrative=modeling, slapping lumps of clay onto an armature),
there’s a section on revising and rewriting which begins
“One of the worst feelings for a poet is to sit and stare at a blank page.”
What follows certainly pertains to poetry,
but it pertains equally to preaching.

Highly recommended!
-M