My Tongan Children’s Book!
This is my first go at a children’s book, and it was a blast to put together. It was inspired by my time in the Pacific Island Kingdom of Tonga as a Peace Corps volunteer and was designed to do some teaching about Tongan culture and Vava’u outer-island village life. You can find the book…
Escape vs. Community in Into the Wild (video and published article)
In this video essay and adapted article, I discuss the film and nonfiction book Into the Wild and the resonance I found in Wendell Berry’s critique of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the essay “Writer and Region.” Into the Wild reminds me often of Berry’s consistent call for us to embrace the…
“The Shepherds and the Magi” (poem published by Ekstasis Magazine)
Read a Christmas poem of mine published by Ekstasis Magazine here. The poem — its thematic content and form — was inspired primarily by the way that Orthodox Nativity icons place the shepherds and the magi at opposite sides of the image, converging on the central image of Christ in the cave. I think there…
“Wishing in the Darkness of Advent” (Analysis of Angela’s Christmas Wish)
Read an adapted version of my video script published by Dappled Things Magazine
My Favorite Ekphrastic Poem (feat. William Blake and Wendell Berry)
The poem I analyze in this video is a 2004 Sabbath poem written by Wendell Berry, who is my favorite writer of all time. Berry’s Sabbath poems are typically personal pieces of meditation, inspired by his time outdoors. But this one is a bit different. He claims to have drawn inspiration from a painting by…
A Thematic Analysis of Nolan’s Tenet: Control vs. Love
“The more one forgets himself–by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love–the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.” ~Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning With Christopher Nolan’s film Tenet being centered on time travel and the plot being driven by a mission to stop an impending…
The Book Thief and the Power of Words
I’ve taught Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief for many years. It’s a book that is so easy to love, and one that admittedly walks the line between young adult fiction and more “serious” literature. The Book Thief’s central theme — “the power of words” — also might not seem all that complex. But the more…
A Symbolic Analysis of Angela’s Christmas
An adapted version of this script has been published at Busted Halo under the title “The Netflix Children’s Movie That Draws Us in to Christ’s Nativity”! — Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room Immensity, cloister’d in thy dear womb ~ From “Annunciation” by John Donne Angela’s Christmas, a short Emmy-nominated children’s…
The Age of Disincarnation (Sabbath poem by Wendell Berry)
This poem is one of the most concise and powerful condemnations of our reliance on technology that I’ve ever come across — especially in terms of the disembodied, “disincarnate” identities we assume through social media. It was written by the wonderful American poet Wendell Berry, taken from his 2013 collection of “Sabbath Poems.” See the…
At Hintok River Camp (original poem)
“At Hintok River Camp” (Thailand, October 2020) The fire flickers in the globes Set down along our trail.Without a torch, we walk and trust Their faint glow will not fail. Like spiders’ invisible webs, The patterned way is there,Past railroads built on backs of those In darkness and despair. We grasp onto this shining thread;…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Follow My Blog
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Mark Cooprider 
Leave a comment