Paul J. Pastor
@pauljpastor
A wildish man | Writer, Poet, Etc. | Executive Editor @HarperCollins | “Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.” | Smells & bells; words & wonders.
This book, years in the making, and so beautifully made with friends, contains a significant and joyous portion of my heart. Please order it today!
The time is dark. The time is wild. So fill the lamp. So guide the child. The Locust Years, by @pauljpastor (forthcoming on May 27, 2025) is rich to its core with a child’s wonder and peace wrestled from the suffering and grief that are the price we pay for love. British artist…
An encouraging sign: I'm hearing more and more about Gen Z "rebels" who refuse to get sucked into the social media lifestyle. They choose to do hard things and analog things. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/…
Everyone in higher ed -- the higher the position the better-- should be asking themselves two questions: 1. Why did Tulsa eliminate a very successful program? 2. Why were such programs rare to begin with?
I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
Real winners drop the LLMs (Large Language Models) for LMMs (Lucy Maud Montgomerys).
In the newsletter this week, @SallyThomasNC on @pauljpastor's "The Locust Years" from @WisebloodBooks
@SallyThomasNC on The Locust Years by @pauljpastor in @Fare_Fwd - As always, Sally is an astute reader who helps her readers to see better. You can order your copy of Paul's extraordinary collection @WisebloodBooks - (link in the review) mailchi.mp/90d7c723c125/2…
from the inimitable Jane Greer-- Things are ending, or have ended, or will end. The pearls are strung with care, it is quite clear. There is no nothingness—but she can almost, some days, picture the world without her in it. newversereview.com/2-1-jane-greer Eternal memory.
A delightful surprise to open (late!) the Spring edition of the famed Crux journal from @regentcollege and find one of the most careful & insightful reviews of my book Bower Lodge that I’ve ever read. Thoughtful reviews are an art in themselves. What a gift to be read closely.
Jane was one of the Real Ones, an irreplaceable character and real talent. She’ll be missed.
I am very sad to report that the wonderful Catholic poet Jane Greer @NorthDakotaJane has died. Please keep her soul, her family and her husband Jim in your prayers.
I am a bit touched on hearing of the death of Ozzy Osbourne. In spite of all the theatrics (and there were plenty), he sang some grand and heartfelt songs against war, insanity, and greed, over some of the greatest, most sludgey riffs ever to issue forth from a guitar.
“The Lark Ascending,” from @DAustinRoses, a rose named after a song named after a poem named after a bird. Glorious!
No. Ignore this. You are capable of reading books again. The brain is highly malleable and you only need a few screen-free weeks to recover your focus. You will be amazed how quickly the hunger for reading returns. You will be inhaling words
If you haven’t read Proust already, forget it mate. Your brain is destroyed from short term dopamine burst addiction and algorithmic k-hole content.
Listen, I’m happy to scroll silently past as people gush about “poems” that are just cliche-ridden, badly lineated prose which expresses sentiments with which they happen to already agree. But there have to be limits.
