A Fire to Light Our Tongues: Texas Writers on Spirituality

by Elizabeth Joan Dell (Editor), Donna Walker-Nixon (Editor)

Overview

A Fire to Light Our Tongues: Texas Writers on Spirituality brings together the works of writers in Texas. The title is taken, with permission, from Naomi Shihab Nye’s introduction to Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets, where she states the role of poetry serves as “a fire to light our tongues.” This view describes the role that creative writers, encountering the challenges of this past decade, face as they grapple with shifting views of spirituality. While the project started before COVID-19, given the current worldwide pandemic, a book of creative work responding to writers’ spirituality could not be more timely. This anthology offers readers creative works by Texas writers as they wrestle with evolving systems of belief or nonbelief.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780875658056
Publisher:	TCU Press
Publication date:	07/07/2022
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

ELIZABETH JOAN DELL, an émigré from Virginia, has lived in central Texas long enough to raise children and call it home. Fiction editor of this anthology, she is a senior lecturer in the English Department at Baylor University, where she teaches literature and creative writing and serves as Literature Program Director. She is coeditor with Joe B. Fulton of American Literary Cultures: A Reader. DONNA WALKER-NIXON, a native Texan, attended a two-room school outside of Stephenville, where she dreamed of growing up to teach and write. She went on to build a thirty-year career teaching English literature, composition, and creative writing at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and Baylor University. She founded Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature and The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas. She was lead editor of Her Texas.

Table of Contents

Introduction Joe O'Connell 1

Pandemic Time 5

The New Cartography Julia Guez 6

Treasures Within the Temple LiAundra Grace 7

The Road Between San Antonio and Comstock Texas Naomi Shihab Nye 9

[Through plaster walls I hear the wailing] Octavio Quintanilla 10

Memos from Afar Robin Bradford 11

In This Way Kevin Prufer 12

Still Life When All Our Symptoms Seem to Have Symptoms of Their Own Julia Guez 15

House. Church. Jill Alexander Essbaum 17

Contraries 21

Belief and Doubt

Tender Interior Christian Wiman 24

Even Sound Hides Its Face Robert Okaji 27

Beginning to Shape Ulf Kirchdorfer 28

Jesus Likes to Hang Out on the San Juan Water Tower Charles McGregor 29

Grace, 1982 Octavio Quintanilla 30

Texas, Out Driving Naomi Shihab Nye 31

El Cuarto de los Milagros Diana López 32

The Pilot Mary Helen Specht 37

Kafir 1 Tarfia Faizullah 48

Kafir 2 Tarfia Faizullah 50

Magdalen Angélique Jamail 52

Good and Evil

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer Chaitali Sen 56

Five Snapshots of Jarrell, Texas, May 27, 1997 Al Haley 71

God's Hands Octavio Quintanilla 76

A few at the Airport Rich Levy 78

Sinful Rich Levy 80

Witnesses Steve Weathers 82

On Forgiving Leslie Jill Patterson 93

Trew Reade: A Reporters Story A. G. Mojtabai 99

The Border Bruce Bond 106

Baptism M. M. De Voe 112

Small Town Agnostic's Prayer J. Scott Brownlee 116

Dog Star J. Scott Brownlee 118

Made in Nigeria Jessica Wilbanks 120

Love and Hope

Pagans Rick Bass 132

Kindred Spirit Rich Levy 149

Psalm 2 Octavio Quintanilla 151

An Old Lady Hunting Treasure Peter Hoheisel 153

Homing In Monica Macansantos 154

Christmas House, Vallejo, California Monica Macansantos 155

When You Ask Me If I Believe Robin Gara 157

Shoulders Naomi Shihab Nye 158

Wading in the Water of the Trinity River: A Womanist Perspective Yvette R. Blair-Lavallais 159

Known and Unknown

The Martyrs of Mountain Peak Owen Egerton 164

Smith Canyon Noel Crook 172

Calf Chris Ellery 173

The Ghosts on Farm Road Mark Sanders 174

La Grange Robert Okaji 176

A Stockyard Liturgy D. G. Geis 177

Lazarus Alive William Virgil Davis 178

Lighthouse, Port Isabel Carol Coffee Reposa 179

The Window Brian Van Reet 180

Credo John Fry 193

To get there John Fry 195

Way-Seeking Nan Cuba 196

The Black Madonna of Czestochowa Robin Davidson 200

Truth and Beauty

West News from the Little Bend of South View Jim LaVilla-Havelin 204

Bluebonnet Sutra Laurence Musgrove 206

Taking on the Big One Charles Taylor 207

At the Heart of the Heart Charles Taylor 208

Call It a Kind of Grace Steve Wilson 209

Grandfather's Heaven Naomi Shihab Nye 210

Novel Excerpt from Blood Money Gary T. McDonald 211

A Frontier's Passing Heath Dollar 218

Delayed Baggage, Oswiecim, 2004 Robin Davidson 222

And Finally the Tragedy Blake Kimzey 223

Joy and Gratitude

Honest Gospel Singing Greg Brownderville 226

Female Energy along the Camino That Is Life Norma Elia Cantú 228

Of the Beginning Loretta Diane Walker 233

Sacrifice Loretta Diane Walker 234

Epiphany Angélique Jamail 235

Thank You Very Much Ursula Pike 236

The Trail John Blair 242

Guns and Hard Candy Robert Flynn 245

Acknowledgments 251

Contributors 255

About the Editors 269