Monks Poetry

Monks In Jersey

Simon Wu | Paris Review | 3rd July 2025

Account of a long weekend spent as a temporary Buddhist monk in New Jersey. "There was more of it than I thought — my hair, that was. It fell in soft clumps to the shower curtain. As he shaved me, the monk explained to me that this arrangement was intentional and symbolic. It was supposed to represent losing vanity. But I could think of nothing but my vanity. I couldn’t stop thinking about being bald" (4,400 words)

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Getting Started With Old English Poetry

Colin Gorrie | Dead Language Society | 2nd July 2025

Most Old English poetry is easier to read than Beowulf, so work your way up to it. The Wanderer, a work from the subgenre of elegiac poetry, is worth exploring — it inspired some of Tolkien's verse for The Lord of the Rings. Deor, a wisdom poem, contains lines that are the "kind of thing people get tattooed on their arm". Or try The Dream of the Rood, which recasts the crucifixion as a Germanic epic (2,300 words)