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Francis Fike

Reviews

War’s Insanity in Verse

No Turning Back, by R.L. Barth NO TURNING BACK: THE BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU R.L. BARTH SCIENTER PRESS, 2016 26 PAGES $12.50 In his brief introduction to No Turning Back: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, R.L. Barth tells us that, after writing poems about his experience as a Marine in the American war, he “wanted to establish for the historical background of own tour” and thus took a deep look at the final battle of the French war…
Francis Fike
June 30, 2018
Inside Out

Is their Span but Toil and Trouble?

“All our days pass away under thy wrath, our years come to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength four-score; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. ... So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” – Psalm 90   When we are young, we don’t worry or think much about…
Francis Fike
June 30, 2017
Poetry

The Dove

Here in a parking lot in February Where snow, piled through the winter, melting in thaw, Had sent a freshly pulsing tributary Across the asphalt like a silver claw, A dove landed, dipped, and drank, wary. Almost as swift in flight as peregrine With wings that whisper rhythm as it flies, Cautiously wild, yet still in cities seen, This is the mourning dove, whose presence vies For space against construction and machine. Songbird yet gamebird, prey to hunters’ pride, Preyed…
Francis Fike
January 4, 2017
Poetry

Autumn Leaves

It seems the leaves know that they’re done with green of photosynthesis: loosing their stems from tendril grasp, they drop, but glide so far from tree you wouldn’t think that leaves so far had come from distant oak or birch but for the form they clearly bear. Their gliding draws my admiration: Energized from loosing free, though similar in species’ name, leaves that seemed alike on tree, now individual in flight, differ in distance and descent, distinctive in each solo…
Francis Fike
January 4, 2017
Uncategorized

Following Tracks in the Dark

In the preface of her new book of poems, her seventh, Jeanne Murray Walker asks "Why read poetry?" and answers: poetry has given us "solace for thousands of years," as well as "entertained and nurtured" us. She describes her own poems as "tracks" that she followed "into the dark" that has fallen and separated us from each other since 9/11. She invites the reader to listen to "the human voice talking" in them as the poems lead us toward "the…
Francis Fike
August 1, 2010
Uncategorized

Fiction and Faith in Ten Contemporary Writers

Readers of fiction inside and outside the church have been wary of the role that faith plays in the novels and stories they read; the first because they prefer affirmation and dislike negative portrayals, and the second because they think that a writer's faith-commitment is deleterious to fiction. In this collection of interviews with ten American novelists, (Eleanor Taylor Bland, David James Duncan, Terence Faherty, Ernest Gaines, Philip Gulley, Ron Hansen, Silas House, Jan Karon, Sheri Reynolds, and Lee Smith),…
Francis Fike
March 1, 2009
Uncategorized

A New Hymn for Christ the King

Relatively new in the church's liturgical calendar, Christ the King Day (the last Sunday before Advent, November 21 this year) merits a new hymn. Here a text by Francis Fike, the Poetry Editor of Perspectives, is paired with a musical setting by John Hoyer, Music Librarian at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. The hymn was first sung by the choir and congregation of Hope Reformed Church in Holland, on Christ the King Day, November 23, 2003. We have asked Francis…
Francis Fike and John Hoyer
October 16, 2004