Just what we need--another weblog!

Actually, a lot of people (primarily Christian parents and others who want their kids to read and love healthy, quality books) need help; help plowing through the mountain of titles available, help learning to identify worldviews in children's literature, help with the priority and discipline of guiding our children's reading. That's what my new weblog fit2READ is all about.
With a focus on youth fiction and biography, we will post about five times each week on individual titles, things to watch for (exa: Our public library is terrific and I use it regularly, but don't even think about turning your kids loose in the shelves, unless you want them exposed to every conceivable worldview, philosophy and cause on the planet.) Posts will be short, but full of information and counsel. And we welcome your constructive comments.
Find us at fit2READ.blogspot.com.

A poem for guys

I didn't learn to understand, appreciate, or otherwise love poetry as I grew up; I wish I had. In recent years I have been collecting some things that increasingly enrich my life, most notably the work of the great English parish priest George Herbert. I admire the contemporary work of Wendell Berry (although he is a better essayist than poet) and Pastor John Piper, who faithfully cranks out a series of Advent poems every year.
I like two things about the following piece by the English poet Alfred Noyes (1880-1959). First, it is a good example of a creative work that is deeply shaped by Scripture without proof-texting; and second, although not at all gender-specific, the message is robust and will stand up to a man's need. Here's one to pull out when you are feeling the heat:
The Anvil
Stand like a beaten anvil, when your dream
Is laid upon you, golden from the fire.
Flinch not, though heavily through that furnace-gleam
The black forge-hammers fall on your desire.

Demonic giants round you seem to loom.
It's but the world-smiths heaving to and fro.
Stand like a beaten anvil. Take the doom
Their ponderous weapons deal you, blow on blow.

Needful to truth as dew is to the flower
Is this wild wrath and this implacable scorn.
For every pang, new beauty, and new power,
Burning blood-red will on your heart be born.
Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth's wrong
Beat on that iron and ring back in song.