OLD STORIES, SUNG AGAIN.
Parabolic Imagination is a Christian literary project devoted to receiving the inherited stories of the past through serious scholarship and imagination, and singing them again in long narrative poetry.
Inherited Story - Lilith
Current work - Reimagining A George MacDonald Masterpiece
Opinion, grievance, creed and truth
became the battle-cry;
the holiest word could ride beside
the most malignant lie.
"The truth! The truth!" men shouted there
while striking friend and foe;
one wheeled and smote on every side
with nowhere else to go.
Some rested side by side awhile,
exhausted by the fight,
then rose and struck each other down
again beneath the light.
The Story Comes First
Parabolic Imagination begins with inherited stories: works carried through books, manuscripts, translation, memory, retelling, faith, and history.
I receive them before I transform them—asking what actually happens, what has survived, what remains strange, and what must not be made easier than it is.
Then I sing them again in long narrative poetry: Christian in imagination, serious about history, attentive to bodies, places, objects, choices, and consequences.
The aim is not to make the past quaint or the world vaguely enchanted, but to attend closely enough that reality becomes strange, meaningful, beautiful, terrible, and wondrous again.
Explore the Work
Inherited Story
Old stories, strange histories, good poems—and conversation around the work of Parabolic Imagination.
Poetry
Narrative poems, shorter work, readings, and poems written for the speaking voice.
The Library
Sources, strange histories, literature, theology, craft, and the questions behind the poems.
Pipes, Pints & Poetry
Old stories, strange histories, good poems—and conversation around the work of Parabolic Imagination.
Enter the Story
For those who believe, doubt, wander, return, or simply wonder.
Come in. Stay awhile
