Come, Jet Lag; Come, Haggis
My first meal off the plane, jet-lagged as I was, consisted of No. 1 Grange Road’s “Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties Tower.”
Jacob Schepers (Calvin ’12) is the author of A Bundle of Careful Compromises (2014), a winner of the 2013 Outriders Poetry Project competition. His poetry has appeared in Verse, The Common, PANK, The Destroyer, and others. He lives in South Bend, IN, with his wife, Charis, and two sons, Liam and Oliver. He is both an MFA student and doctoral candidate in English at the University of Notre Dame.
by Jacob Schepers | Jul 2, 2017 | 0 comments
My first meal off the plane, jet-lagged as I was, consisted of No. 1 Grange Road’s “Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties Tower.”
by Jacob Schepers | Jun 2, 2017 | 0 comments
Words are not the deciding factor here. Actions are met with actions.
by Jacob Schepers | May 2, 2017 | 0 comments
Oh, Lordy, those morels. In my estimation, they are the pinnacle of umami, of savory taste, with all of the satisfaction of a Sunday roast in a single bite.
by Jacob Schepers | Apr 2, 2017 | 0 comments
Every spring, Notre Dame holds a half-marathon called (surprise, surprise) “The Holy Half.”
by Jacob Schepers | Mar 2, 2017 | 0 comments
I’m stepping into church council. Humility knows no bounds. What can I reciprocate? I grovel, lying prostrate, prone.
by Jacob Schepers | Feb 2, 2017 | 0 comments
In my afternoon with wizards and troll farts, I collected electronic sparkles, almost broke my neck, and unknowingly imprisoned myself and my younger brother.
by Jacob Schepers | Jan 2, 2017 | 0 comments
Come this new year, let’s not see how low we can go.
by Jacob Schepers | Dec 2, 2016 | 0 comments
To name without claiming full understanding and possession is to adopt an attitude of humility, subscribing to mystery over mastery.
by Jacob Schepers | Nov 2, 2016 | 0 comments
This post, though it may not seem like it at all, is much more personal than anything I’ve written thus far.
by Jacob Schepers | Oct 2, 2016 | 0 comments
Certainly the most popular selfie-spot on campus, Touchdown Jesus overlooks the football stadium with Christ and his perpetually upraised arms.
by Jacob Schepers | Sep 2, 2016 | 0 comments
It takes two to tango. If the mosquito gets off scot-free, successful and without need of a getaway car, this robber has engorged itself with three times its weight in blood.
by Jacob Schepers | Aug 2, 2016 | 0 comments
I have never had a dog, let alone a puppy, before, so I’m very much a novice with this new family endeavor. But the time now is right to take the puppy plunge.
by Jacob Schepers | Jul 2, 2016 | 0 comments
Shows like these, the structural elements composing each episode, have taught me (oddly) as much about genre as any work of theory.
by Jacob Schepers | Jun 2, 2016 | 0 comments
So on back. Back to the music video. Back to the lyrics that make the video all worthwhile. It’s not that I’m expecting everyone to get this.
by Jacob Schepers | May 2, 2016 | 0 comments
I’m not painting out such writers, or any writers, for that matter, to be dull; rather, what’s been more fascinating, and all the more reassuring, is that such giants were people first and writers second.
by Jacob Schepers | Apr 2, 2016 | 0 comments
We found a bike he fell in love with and, you guessed it, it’s pink and princess-emblazoned. He does not yet realize that this is not what is “expected” of him, and more power to him for it.
by Jacob Schepers | Mar 2, 2016 | 0 comments
If I sound whiny, forgive me. I’m cloistered amongst literal stacks of books with an academically sanctioned excuse just to read. That’s gotta be one of the most bourgy complaints imaginable.
by Jacob Schepers | Feb 2, 2016 | 0 comments
If you are reading this, congratulations. You received this from the past. You have the benefit of hindsight, recaps, twenty-four-hour news cycles.
by Jacob Schepers | Dec 2, 2015 | 0 comments
6. Bribes are more than okay. I’ve trained my kids to think that tic-tacs are the holiest of grails in terms of possible rewards for good behavior.
by Jacob Schepers | Nov 2, 2015 | 0 comments
“Daddy, when you and Mommy go to heaven, who will be our new Mommy and Daddy?” Just another dinner conversation. I stop mid-bite and look up to see him watching me curiously.
by Jacob Schepers | Oct 2, 2015 | 0 comments
So let’s celebrate the fiery element of those banned books which smoke out the assumptions and biases we hold. The catalyst they provide is a Pentecost of perceptions, the beauty of flaming tongues affixed to the mind.
by Jacob Schepers | Sep 2, 2015 | 1 comment
Mondays & Wednesdays 3:30-4:30, and by appointment, my syllabus says. It’s as if I typed it in my blood, signing a pact with my students.
by Jacob Schepers | Jul 2, 2015 | 1 comment
Seeing them encounter the world at large while still protecting them from the worst of it is a balance of restraint on my part as much as it is on theirs.
by Jacob Schepers | Jun 2, 2015 | 0 comments
I show you a hero and someone can find a fault; I show you an anti-hero and we see resemblance, some shared condition, a double bind that binds us yet. And yet.
by Jacob Schepers | May 2, 2015 | 0 comments
These are the newfangled priests and priestesses. White lab coats their robes, surgical masks and safety glasses their phylacteries.
by Jacob Schepers | Apr 2, 2015 | 1 comment
I was four or five when I ran away from home. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision stemming from my preschool sense of injustice.
by Jacob Schepers | Mar 2, 2015 | 4 comments
I won’t give away The Room’s plot (what little there is of one). I want to champion the film as an exemplar of side-splittingly cringe-worthy, schadenfreude-propelled group viewing.
by Jacob Schepers | Feb 2, 2015 | 0 comments
In my mind I’m goin’ to Trivia Crack/Can’t you see the questions?/Can’t you just feel the Wheel spin?/Ain’t it just like a friend of mine/To beat me from behind?
by Jacob Schepers | Jan 2, 2015 | 1 comment
The epigraph is probably the grandparent to the murky boundaries between the content and not-quite-content sandwiched by a book’s front and back covers.
by Jacob Schepers | Dec 2, 2014 | 0 comments
Our car—our little-sedan-that-could—broke down last month. Yes, it seems our green Chevy Impala finally uttered those three fateful words: “I can’t even.” Requiscat in pace.