This is the time of year for a favourite Old English word: the leaves are 'fallowing', from the verb fealwian, 'to turn yellow-gold'. In Anglo-Saxon poetry fealo (fallow) is the pale golden shade of fire, linden shields, sword hilts and autumn leaves. They fallow, then they fall.

Death and laughter - embrace them both. Jane Clark Scharl 's play, The Death of Rabelais, will help you do this! From Wiseblood Books wisebloodbooks.com/store/p169/The…

Our good friend and one of our favorite writers, Jane Clark Scharl's new verse play (second in her Rabelais trilogy) is out today from Wiseblood Books! Read more open.substack.com/pub/wisebloodb… and get your copy today!

It's Publication Day! Hooray!

I have said for years that we are in a little golden age of Christian and Catholic writing, and Jane Clark Scharl is one of my prime examples. Witty, wise, hilarious, and sharp, her brilliant new play, “The Death of Rabelais,” is out *today* from Wiseblood Books. Join the macabre fun!

Congratulations to Jane Clark Scharl! She will be speaking at this coming summer residency MFA at Ashland University--and a staged reading of one of her plays is planned as well.

For the evening crowd: buy it, read it!

Love these fundraising prizes!

A Halloween meditation from Brian Palmer: "Ode to Words to a Ghost on Halloween." Opening stanzas here, full poem 👇.

incredible.

New Verse Review is open from November 1 through November 30 for poetry submissions to its winter issue. We'd be honored if you shared your work with us. Full details👇.

Wipf and Stock Publishers is having their annual sale. Perfect time to get a copy of First Make Mad for just $6.50!

'For all Cristen saulys pray we: Requiem eternam dona eis, Domine.' Some medieval prayers for All Souls: aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-song…

If you're in the neighborhood, hope you can join me this coming Thursday at St. Anselm at 7pm for a reading and open mic! anselm.edu Hyla Brook Poets Powow River Poets A.M. Juster (#Petrarch @wwnorton April 2026)

For paid subscribers to my s--- (but everyone can read the first few paras) today I've published a fairly long review essay about the great but rebarbative American poet Anthony Hecht, written originally for “The Dark Horse”. Link in bio and first reply.

If you're near Oxford, UK, come out Nov. 22 to Pusey House. Composer Joel Clarkson will premeire an amazing choral setting of my poem "Crosses," and I, and others, will speak. (This day's the lesser feast of C.S. Lewis.) So excited for this time! LINK: eventbrite.com/e/inkwell-in-o…

"Sonnez Les Matines and The Death of Rabelais are beautifully written and unique. Scharl makes use of the historic form and setting to convey ancient truths to the modern world. I was heartily impressed by the level of research, the attention to detail, the mastery of both

The _range_ of today's Prufrock fills me w/ delight and even (by some alchemy) gives me "energy" (as if I'd just consumed a triple espresso). Link to follow:.../1

The first review of Jane Clark Scharl's verse play The Death of Rabelais!

This would not have happened without the one and only Alfred Nicol. Rhina Espaillat has lost none of her powers. One reader said: This is a magnificent collection, brilliant beautiful, exquisite, humble, wholesome, and fearlessly fearful—or fearfully fearless—as she walks right