I tend to only use Pandora in situations where I can’t use iTunes, which then means I just try to recreate my finely honed playlists designed mostly for reading. So of course for re-reading The Hunger Games, I needed to create a portable station with which to read along. When I started plugging tracks from the [AMAZING] Songs From District 12 and Beyond album, I began to pay attention to every song Pandora played to see if the lyrics would fit the narrative, characters and world of The Hunger Games Trilogy. I keep being shocked at how eerily this mix of indie folk, bluegrass, etc has captured so much of the texture and tone of the stories. As an interpretive experience, I love discovering those songs that sound like one character speaking to another, or maybe just songs that certain characters would listen to if they could. And I especially love when the artist name, album or cover art evokes the mood as well.

Here’s some lyric highlights from songs that have come up, (and were findable on youtube). There are many, many more. The name of my Hunger Games station on Pandora is called ‘Run to the Woods’ I dig it.


Mother’s Sick by Horse Feathers from Words are Dead

-Mother’s sick. She’s gone mad.
A daughter’s tricked, she’s been had.
Life just don’t always fold up neat.
Sadness will come in different sheets.

As blue eyes state, on your father’s face,
hides some grace.
All those years your youth has stole.

Have You Ever by Brandi Carlile from The Story

-Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods?
And everything there feels just as it should
You’re part of the life there
You’re part of something good

-Have you ever stared into a starry sky?
Lying on your back you’re asking why
What’s the purpose I wonder who am I

Flowers and Blood by Marie Sioux from Faces in the Rocks

-I’ll shoot me a gun made of leaf and branch in this here town
And eat me a bowl full of secret and mud, yes, i will
I’ll eat eat me a bowl full of secret and mud, yes, i will
If you build up a new me of flowers and blood — say you will
Build up a new me of flowers and blood — say you will

How Long by Eilen Jewell from Letters from Sinners & Strangers

-The darkness is deep, but night will end
‘Cause truth crushed to earth will rise again
How long will it take, you want to know
How long, not long because you reap just what you sow

Sing your Song by Johnny Bertram from Sing Your Song

-If you wake up in the morning to find
your things all gone
sing your song
And if you bed down in the darkest cave
of fear and fright
shine your light
Don’t let yourself pretend
that this is the end

- If you’re standing on the battlefield wearing blood,
the lines are drawn
sing your song
And if you’re stuck in situations far out
beyond your control
Let them go




Sing Out by Mason Jennings from Blood of Man

-I’ve been a rolling stone since the devil first came to me
No light upon my feet, so much that I couldn’t see
I was a hurricane till the hurricane called my name
Into the eye of the storm out of the cold, cold rain

-Sing out, sing for the wounded heart
Sing for the lives we’ve lost




Love Song for Buddy by Headlights from Wildlife

-We’re all gonna die tomorrow
Waiting around for your friends to come down and join you

-Don’t you want to say you tried?
Don’t you want to say you tried to the ones you love?

You can open the pdf here: Expecto Pater–Kj Swanson.
Or, if you’re not in the mood to read 27 pages about a late ’90′s children’s fantasy novel, here’s some Powerpoint presentation highlights instead. Enjoy!





















**The actual reason I wrote this paper was to help me decide my third tattoo text.

“for biography, read Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Southey’s Life of Nelson, Lockhart’s Life of Burns, Moore’s Life of Sheridan, Moore’s Life of Byron,”

…and so on. So entering Gaskell’s Life of Brontë is to some extent, an expedition into the world of those leather-bound tomes full of dates, correspondences, and panegyrics from one great author to another. As one who reads 150 year-old fiction on a nonstop basis, this genre still felt quite foreign.

In persevering, though, I found some things well worth the search. I read the Oxford Classics edition and highly recommend it for its notes. The main challenge in reading, is that Gaskell is bound both by Victorian propriety and by perceived obligation to her friend Charlotte, to protect both her privacy and her reputation. Thus, no juicy bits or suppositions about what’s happening in-between the lines of her letters (and life). But the Oxford notes offer great annotations and corrections when possible. That enervating habit of 19th century authors to blank out names of people and places, gets filled in by flipping to the end notes. Hallelujah. (Though this did triple the length of reading time).

I still felt pretty distant from the Charlotte Brontë presented in the pages. The version of her you get is so much Gaskell’s redaction, that despite 70% of the text being letters from Brontë’s own hand, it still feels emotionally and contextually distant, (at least for this modern reader). But that’s likely a genre and context issue. It’s clear that Gaskell wanted Brontë’s critics to know that the author of Jane Eyre, Shirley and Villette was an unassuming and unpretentious woman who lived a quiet life of suffering and struggle, and who shied away from fame. Against Brontë’s detractors who accused her pseudonymous “Currer Bell” of being “course” and “un-Christian,” Gaskell displays the deep moral and spiritual convictions, reservedness and compassion that epitomized this Yorkshire curate’s daughter.

Though Gaskell’s Life of Brontë is perhaps less illuminating of Brontë’s relationships and life choices than is contemporary scholarship, the work is indeed, as Charlotte’s father Rev Patrick Brontë said, “in every way worthy of what one great woman should have written of another.”

What I enjoyed most was the amount of correspondence time Brontë takes in recommending and critiquing literature. Her relationship with her publishers turned into what seemed a perpetual book club of trading books and reviews. And what sticks out so often is that Brontë rarely mentions plot construction, setting or even language. Her responses almost always center on what the author uncovers or expresses of true human nature, or how the heart and mind of the author is revealed in their writing. That’s how I read Brontë’s writing as well. Not surprising then that it was in these passages that I got the clearest sense of who this woman was, and as a result, drew nearer to her.

Gaskell’s Life of Brontë is a must-read for any Brontë devotee, even if only to gain respect and sympathy for the short and impacting friendship shared by two culture-shaping women, who could never have predicted the reach of their legacies. This is Elizabeth mourning the loss of her friend Charlotte, in the kindest way she could think of. It is much appreciated.



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The Return of the King

“All that is gold does not glitter,
not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
a light from the shadows shall spring;
renewed shall be blade that was broken,
the crownless again shall be king.”

What is the Magic Kingdom of the Soul? It’s the capacity to be awestruck with wonder, to watch fireworks with tears in your eyes, to marvel at the early-blooming flowers in your backyard, to be stopped by the sight of the Milky Way as you walk home at night, to be easily surprised and frequently silly. It’s the ability to say YES, PLEASE! to mystery and to allow the knowledge that we are truly made of star-matter to affect our sense of identity.

True enchantment is perhaps this: to be utterly captivated and breath-taken by reality. I love living here.

A Prayer

May you read dangerously,
listen passionately,
and write with risk

no matter whom you are running from,
where you are hiding
or who is telling you to beware

and when you find yourself face to face with a story that
awakens your desire
or breaks your heart,
unleashes your hope of adventure
or reminds you why you started seeking in the first place

then dive in, steal it if you have to,
and wrestle it for a blessing.

May you be brave, may you be kind,
may you be haunted by the wonder of God’s Kingdom.

Amen