Writers & Poets

Conservatism as Literary Movement

Devon, PA.  Last month, I alerted FPR readers to the appearance of the first part of my essay, "Art and Beauty against the Politicized...

Defending Lasch, Left and/or Right

Wichita, KS. No one, I think, has ever summed up the longing for a life with front porches--the localist longing which is this blog's...

Eric Miller on The Lost Cause of the Midwest

Devon, PA.  If you have not encountered Eric Miller's savage indignation elsewhere, here is a fine place to start: his review of David S....

The American Aesop

Hillsdale, MI. It is said that Aesop, despite making all his characters animals and thus avoiding being Nathan to his contemporary Davids, was finally...

A Prayer for Livia Grace

Devon, PA.  This week marks my daughter's third birthday.  As a way of tossing a little Front Porch confetti her way, I reprint here ...

Nowheresville

This post is dangerously close to turf already claimed by Bill Kaufman and Jason Peters. But the appeal of Richard Russo is so strong...

Novel, Myth, Reality: An Anatomy of Make-Believe

For Maureen Drdak, If she will accept it as part of our good conversation. Devon, PA. I shall be returning to the following subject frequently in the next...

Some Permanent Things

Devon, PA.  Here is a poem of mine that has just appeared in the poetry journal The Dark Horse and on Ernest Hilbert's ever...

Elmer Kelton, RIP

BURNED--OVER DISTRICT, NY---Elmer Kelton, the superb Texas novelist, died Saturday. In 2006 I visited Mr. Kelton in his San Angelo home; herewith, via the...

Crolier Than Thou

Almost lost among the bicentennial celebrations of Lincoln’s and Darwin’s births is the centenary of Herbert Croly’s The Promise of American Life, a child...