Author: D. A. Hosek
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: St Hedwig (a day late)
Once again, I forgot to actually write up my visit to a church on the day it happened. St Hedwig is the sister church of St John Berchmans in the two-church St Carlo Acutis parish that I visited on Sunday. But where St John Berchmans is a restrained church (designed by a protestant architect I’ve…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Teresa of Ávila
St Teresa of Ávila was my parish for a while around 2001–2 when I was involved with the music ministry for a while there. Add in that the feast of Saint Teresa is on my birthday and even though today was the first time I’d been to the church in almost a quarter century, I…
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Three new poems: Jubilate Mammonæ, Museum of Broken Hearts and Carmen Philomelaicum
I have three poems in the Autumn 2025 issue (Volume 51, Number 2) of California Quarterly: Museum of Broken Hearts Jubilate Mammonæ Carmen Philomelaicum The last is a translation of a Latin poem by Eusebius of Toledo, my first published translation.¹ I had read somewhere once that translating poems was an important part of the…
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The big countdown
This year’s life expectancy is up from 86 last year to 87 this year. It’s been a year of instability and uncertainty and disappointment, so hopefully the extra year won’t be something I’ll regret. As of tomorrow, I will have outlived the following (in no particular order) Abraham Lincoln Steve Jobs Adolf Hitler Ludwig van…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Saint Carlo Acutis (St John Berchmans)
Carlo Acutis is not the first saint in this project whose life intersected with my own, but he is the first whose life was entirely within my own (not to mention being the most recently canonized—the first I’d heard of him, in fact, was when I was making the spreadsheet of parishes, saints and feast…
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New poem: Chicago Sonnet #42
Another poem from my Chicago Sonnets sequence is out in the debut issue of Big Score Lit. Despite being #42, it’s actually the first poem in the sequence and the one that inspired the project. There used to be a newsstand near the Adams station of the “L” in the loop and I was always intrigued…
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A visit with my younger self: 12 February 1989
At this point in my life, I was still essentially homeless and hanging out on campus before my return to Chicago, and yet I did have a girlfriend. She had told me that her roommate was crazy, but I didn’t really believe her until I encountered it firsthand: Wilma’s situation with her roommate leaves me…
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Catholic nerd pilgrimage: Holy Angels (Our Lady of Africa)
The parish of Our Lady of Africa was formed from the merger of five parishes on the south side, with worship consolidated to the former Holy Angels church which has been renamed to match the new parish name, but since there was no other possible Mass for today, I went to Bronzeville for the 10.30a…
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Writerly resolutions: September status
It’s been another mediocre month for writing progress. My second full request on We, the Rescued got another form rejection, which tells me that more work on the novel itself is warranted. I’ve gone ahead and printed the current draft so I can re-read and do another editorial round on it to bring it closer…