SPOTLIGHT

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

By Sam Kean Thursday, January 30, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

By Sam Kean Thursday, January 30, 2025

Essays

Martha Foley’s Granddaughters

What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett

Asturias Days

Last Laugh

Read Me a Poem

“À une passante” by Charles Baudelaire

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Smarty Pants Podcast

Bathing Badasses

Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming

Essays

To Catch a Sunset

Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love

Asturias Days

Woman in a Red Raincoat

Read Me a Poem

“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Book Reviews

Rhyme, Not Repetition

All that’s past isn’t necessarily present

Essays

The Next New Thing

In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before

Asturias Days

Burned

Read Me a Poem

“The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Paige Ledom

Out of the ordinary

Article

The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend

How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths

Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)
Book Reviews

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Asturias Days

Cudillero

Read Me a Poem

“The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Smarty Pants Podcast

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

Next Line, Please

Above the River of Your Longing

Two new prompts

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current issue

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The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025

Book Reviews

Aging Out

Many of us do not go gentle into that good night

Article

The Fair Fields
loading

Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

Poetry

The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025