Some Poetry: Poetry and Thoughts by Arthur Turfa: July 2025

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Jesuit Poets and my Relation to Them

Today, July 31, the Church remembers Ignatius of Loyal. founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). I have long admired this order, even though I have been a Lutheran pastor for over four decades. My parents spoke well of them, and they were not at all inclined to say anything good about Roman Catholicism.

During my last quarter at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, I took a course on the Spiritual Exercises at the Jesuit School of Theology at Chicago, co-located with us.

In high school, I read about the Berrigan Brothers. Dan Berrivgan was a poet, and I read what I could of his works. Robert Southwell was executed during Elizabeth I's reign, and I have also read some of his poems. Berrigna was freer-form.

But Gerard Manley Hopkins influenced me the most. When I started at Penn State, I resolved to read things not required for a class. In an independent bookstore across from campus, I bought Hopkins' Collected Poems and a secondary source about him. After all, I was at college now, and figured I needed to expand what I had been doing. And I was not planning on being an English major. Either German or journalism interested me then. I chose the former, but became. active in print and broadcast media

I marvel at Hopkins's use of language. While I cannot say I have consciously tried to imitate it, it has influenced me. I will end by posting some links and let the readers pursue

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gerard-manley-hopkins

https://jpearce.co/three-jesuit-poets/

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My books:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Arthur-Turfa/author/B00YJ9LNOA?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=72948036-3c2c-488f-a325-b42059ef1dc1

Friday, July 11, 2025

Pulitzer Prize-winning Reporter Rod Nordland Dies- I Knew Him When

Anyone who spent five minutes with Rod Nordland knew he was going places. He was a senior journalism major at Penn State and wrote for The Daily Collegian, news stories and columns that drew equal amounts of praise and rage. Everything was well-written.

In 1971, I was a freshman reporter, undecided about my major, and started like everyone else on Features. Early in 1972, I was promoted to the United Student government beat, which I shared with another reporter. When we were told not to disclose something during a campaign, we did not.

When it came out anyway, Rod took me aside in the office in the basement of the Sackett Building. He asked me why I kept it under wraps. It was not a personal attack; Rod's concern was always for the best reporting, no matter what. I am sure he soon afterwards spoke to the people who told us to ignore what later became known.

Most people on the staff who sought Journalism jobs dreamed of big things but ended up on smaller papers throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Rod went with the Philadelphia Inquirer and covered Southeast Asia. A mutual friend from our Penn State days (and later, my best man- my wife was a journalist) visited him and, with a group, sneaked into Pol Pot's Cambodia one night. Later, Rod wrote for Newsweek and the New York Times, winning numerous awards, including the Pulitzer. He also covered wars and conflicts in Southwest Asia, Central America, and Europe.

His memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon, depicts a chaotic childhood and a career that had more than its share of personal and professional challenges. I would not say we were friends; there was an age difference as well as one of experience. However, he was friendly, and I appreciated knowing him and later reading what he wrote when I could.

The largest group of my Penn State friends came from the Collegian, and the campus radio station, WDFM (now WPSU), where I ended up, and wrote columns for the Collegian. Rod's passing reminds me of my own mortality and brings me back to a time when a group of us thought we were going to set the world on fire. All young people think that. But Rod belonged to the last generation of journalists before the advent of social media, AI, and the fading of print media.