Bill Coyle

Once upon a time the Chairman ordered the complete destruction of the “Four Pests” plaguing China: bedbugs, roaches, rats, and sparrows. Bourgeois birds, he called the sparrows. Sparrows stole the seed the farmers sowed and compromised the harvests. So, throughout the country, loyal . . . . Continue Reading »

Friend, in the desolate time, when your soul is enshrouded in darkness When, in a deep abyss, memory and feeling die out, Intellect timidly gropes among shadowy forms and illusions Heart can no longer sigh, eye is unable to weep; When, from your night-clouded soul the wings of fire have fallen And . . . . Continue Reading »

Questions for Ecclesiastes By Mark Jarman Story Line Press 100 pp. $10 paper The literary climate in the twentieth century has not been notably hospitableto religious poetry. Indeed, one might assert that the tradition, which in English peaked with Donne, Herbert, Vaughn, and Milton, has been in . . . . Continue Reading »