Category Archives: Poetry and Novels

The Church-porch

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Through Lent With George Herbert (Friday after Ash Wednesday) The Church-Porch (Peirirrhanterium) As Arnold Stein points out in the first chapter of George Herbert’s Lyrics there is a plainness about Herbert’s poetry. The plainness is both obvious and concealed, though, … Continue reading →

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Through Lent With George Herbert

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Since 2002 or so I’ve had a copy of the The Complete English Works of George Herbert, the English poet and clergyman who lived during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James VI & I, and Charles I. While I have … Continue reading →

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The Poems You Would Have Written

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

On Ash Wednesday 2019 W. H. Auden, from the epilogue to his elegy to Louis MacNeice in his book of poetry, About the House(1965), 23.

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It’s All Greek To Me: Homeric Questions (Part Two)

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

In the summer of 1933, and then for a fifteen month period in 1934-1935, Milman Parry went to the southern part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Born in 1902 in California, Parry was an associate professor at Harvard University, with … Continue reading →

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Some Resolutions for 2019

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

I follow a number of Canadian writers on Twitter, and one of them is Amanda Reaume. She reads an astonishing number of books, and knows the Canadian Literary scene as well as anyone.  Way back in 2018, on December 29, … Continue reading →

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Brodsky’s Epiphany: “Nativity Poem” (1989)

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

  Nativity Poem Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) I’ve posted this before, but its worth repeating. Joseph Brodsky said about himself, “I’m Jewish; a Russian poet, an English essayist – and, of course, an American citizen.” Although born into a Jewish family, … Continue reading →

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Three Poems in Lieu of a Proper Sermon for Epiphany 2018

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Journey of the Magi                         T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised a Unitarian. After attending Harvard he went to Oxford in 1914 to work on a doctorate in philosophy. After his marriage in 1916 he … Continue reading →

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“Dear God. I am so lonely.” A response to Doug Coupland

Posted on February 10, 2017 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

Like 465,000 other people, I follow Douglas Coupland on Twitter. I like his writing. He remains best known for his first novel Generation X (1991), and I figure I have read at least seven of his novels and non-fiction works. … Continue reading →

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Dublin by Stephen James Smith

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

I recently went to Dublin to meet up with my son and to participate in Bloomsday 2016. One of the Bloomsday events was a three hour reading of excerpts of Ulysses in Temple Bar Square by a variety of actors, … Continue reading →

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A Few Thoughts on David Bowie

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Bruce Bryant-Scott

As someone who spent his adolescence in the 1970s, David Bowie (1947-2016) was unavoidable. My brothers brought his album Hunky Dory into the house and I listened to it repeatedly. Bowie made it big in Canada well before he had … Continue reading →

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