OUR WEIRD LORD: I’m only about 2/3 of the way through the new Dappled Things, but I thought I’d mention my two favorite pieces so far: Matthew Alderman’s quick, fun essay + picture “Quid Tum?”, and Timothy Barr’s poem “The Paschal Four.”

The latter is definitely flawed–it won a high school poetry contest, and has the kind of strenuous cleverness you might expect from a HS poetry contest winner. The imagery at points becomes relentlessly clotted, juxtapositions jostling for attention. But you know, I still really liked it, because it gets the weirdness of the Incarnation, the horror-movie elements of Catholicism, without sacrificing (I think) theological acuity. Basically, this guy needs to read the tabloid news for a few years, and then he’ll be awesome.