E.E. Cummings*

E.E. Cummings (1894—1962) is considered one of the most important poets of the 20th century. Like my own grandfather, he served in the ambulance corps during WWI. His first collection Tulips and Chimneys appeared in 1923. James Dickey once wrote, "I think that Cummings is a daringly original poet, with more vitality and more sheer, uncompromising talent than any other living American writer."

Although Cummings is known particularly for his innovation, and is associated with modernism, his divergences are primarily built upon traditional poetic structures. His variations often consist of using words in unexpected ways — making it seem like he’s used the wrong word or placed it in the wrong part of the sentence. By doing so he elicits sudden stops and reassessments of language and meaning for the reader.

Rushworth M. Kidder wrote in The Christian Science Monitor:
----“His poetry, in many ways, is the chart of his search for a
----redeemer — for something that would save a world made ugly
----by the two world wars through which he lived, and made sordid
----by the materialism that spawned them. In his early years he
----sought salvation in love poetry. As he progressed he came to
----seek it more and more in a sense of deity, in a supreme source
----of goodness that appears in his poetry as everything from a
----vague notion of nature's beneficence to a vision of something
----very like the Christian's God.”

The following poem — which first appeared in The Atlantic in December 1956 — is clearly a sonnet, although it uses minimal rhyme.

Christmas Poem

from spiraling ecstatically this
proud nowhere of earth’s most prodigious night
blossoms a newborn babe: around him, eyes
— gifted with every keener appetite
than mere unmiracle can quite appease—
humbly in their imagined bodies kneel
(over time space doom dream while floats the whole
perhapsless mystery of paradise)
mind without soul may blast some universe
to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars
but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall
even prevail a million questionings
against the silence of his mother’s smile—
— whose only secret all creation sings

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about E.E. Cummings: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Paul Laurence Dunbar*

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872—1906) is a poet, novelist, and short story writer from Dayton, Ohio. His parents had both been enslaved in Kentucky before the Civil War. When he was just 16, a Dayton newspaper began to publish his poems.

His mother had learned to read in order to help young Paul with his schooling. Her desire was that he might, some day, become a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church — the first independent black denomination in the United States.

He was the only African-American student at his high school, yet became the president of the school’s literary society. One of his closest friends was Orville Wright — who, along with his brother, were early encouragers of Dunbar’s poetry. They presented it to their father who was a bishop in the Church of the Brethren — the denomination that published his first volume, Oak and Ivy (1893).

Paul Laurence Dunbar eventually published twelve poetry collections, eight books of fiction, and he also wrote the lyrics for the first all-African-American musical performed on Broadway — In Dahomey (1903) — which later toured in both the U.S. and the U.K.

Christmas Carol

----Ring out, ye bells!
----All Nature swells
With gladness at the wondrous story,—
----The world was lorn,
----But Christ is born
To change our sadness into glory.

----Sing, earthlings, sing!
----To-night a King
Hath come from heaven's high throne to bless us.
----The outstretched hand
----O'er all the land
Is raised in pity to caress us.

----Come at his call;
----Be joyful all;
Away with mourning and with sadness!
----The heavenly choir
----With holy fire
Their voices raise in songs of gladness.

----The darkness breaks
----And Dawn awakes,
Her cheeks suffused with youthful blushes.
----The rocks and stones
----In holy tones
Are singing sweeter than the thrushes.

----Then why should we
----In silence be,
When Nature lends her voice to praises;
----When heaven and earth
----Proclaim the truth
Of Him for whom that lone star blazes?

----No, be not still,
----But with a will
Strike all your harps and set them ringing;
----On hill and heath
----Let every breath
Throw all its power into singing!

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Paul Laurence Dunbar: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Charles Causley*

Charles Causley (1917—2003) is a poet of our times, and yet one more in tune, musically, with the past — becoming at first known for his ballads. He was never a poet of the avant garde — and was called by Dana Gioia, in the late 1990’s, “The most unfashionable poet alive.” He lived a quiet life as a teacher at the same school he had attended, never married, and spent many years caring for his aging mother.

He wrote extensively of his native Cornwall, but also of his world travels. He served in the Royal Navy, and, after completing thirty years as a school teacher, accepted invitations to be writer-in-residence at the University of Western Australia, the Footscray Institute of Technology, Victoria, and the School of Fine Arts, Banff, Alberta.

His first poetry collection, Farewell, Aggie Weston, appeared in 1951; he began to also publish books for children beginning with Figure of 8 in 1969.

In 1984, Gioia said, “Causley’s characteristic mode is often the short narrative…” comparing him to William Blake, his “late eighteenth-century master… [who] provided him a potent example of how the poetic outsider can become a seer.” He added, “The visionary mode has its greatest range of expression in Causley’s religious poetry.”

The following poem is from Charles Causley’s small illustrated book of twelve Christmas poems Bring in the Holly (Frances Lincoln, 1992).

Mary’s Song

Your royal bed
Is made of hay
In a cattle-shed.
Sleep, King Jesus,
Do not fear,
Joseph is watching
And waiting near.

Warm in the wintry air
You lie,
The ox and the donkey
Standing by,
With summer eyes
They seem to say:
Welcome, Jesus,
On Christmas Day!

Sleep, King Jesus:
Your diamond crown
High in the sky
Where the stars look down.
Let your reign
Of love begin,
That all the world
May enter in.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Charles Causley: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Mary of Nazareth

Mary is the earthly mother of Jesus, who by the power of the Holy Spirit, though she was still a virgin, conceived God’s own son. The story in Luke’s account begins with Zacharias — a man in the priestly line — being told by the angel Gabriel that he and his wife, Elizabeth, will have a child in their old age. This child was to be the one to go before the coming of the Christ to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord.

When Gabriel announces to Mary that she is to become the mother of the Messiah, he also reveals that her cousin Elizabeth is miraculously six-months-pregnant.

The following canticle is an exclamation of praise (here in the New King James Version) which was spoken by Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, whom she was visiting in the Judean hill country. It is known as “The Magnificat,” which is Latin for “magnifies” as spoken in the opening line.

The Magnificat

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.

(For those who ponder, like I have —
----How did this navigate its way
----into Luke’s account?
— check out my poem “Magnificat” from my poetry collection Poiema.)

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Hester Pulter

Hester Pulter (1605–1678) is a writer of poetry and prose who was completely unknown, prior to the discovery of her manuscript at Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, in 1996. Although English, she was born in County Dublin, the eighth of James Ley’s ten children. He was chief justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland, at the time of her birth, but the family returned to England in 1608.

The manuscript of her collected writing demonstrates that she was well educated — not only through the variety of literary genres she mastered, but also through her allusions to classical authors, and her interest in recent scientific discoveries. It contains one hundred and twenty poems and an unfinished prose romance. There is no evidence that her writing was ever published (prior to the 21st century) nor that it was even circulated.

It is interesting to note that John Milton wrote a sonnet in honour of James Ley, addressed to Hester’s sister Lady Margaret Ley which begins: “Daughter to that good Earl…” It was in 1626 that James Ley became the first earl of Marlborough.

She married Arthur Pulter in 1620, several months before she turned 15. They primarily lived at his inherited estate of Broadfield near the village of Cottered in Hertfordshire (pictured above). Although Lady Hester Pulter gave birth to eight daughters and seven sons — mentioned by name in her poems — she only predeceased two of them.

The Desire

Dear God, vouchsafe from Thy high throne
To see my tears, and hear my moan;
For I, in heaven and earth, have none
To pity me
In my dejected sad estate,
Wherein I’m thrown by adverse fate,
And hope in none till my last date
But only Thee.
O then be pleased my dust to raise,
To sing thy everlasting praise
In those celestial unknown lays,
With life and love.
Then shall I leave these terrene toys,
Obliviating past annoys,
And be involved in endless joys
With Thee above.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Maurice Manning*

Maurice Manning is a Kentucky poet, who creates the persona of a backwoods bumpkin in his poetry. His voice is cunning, and precise in its playful images, using a disarming, unhurried conversational tone that combines humour with the simplicity and beauty of life in rural landscapes. Although, he is a professor of English and creative writing at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, and in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers in North Carolina, he still lives with his family on a small twenty-acre farm. He is vice chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

The following poem comes from Snakedoctor (2023, Copper Canyon) which is his eighth poetry collection.

The Red Chair

Believing and being hopeful and praying
are sometimes not enough to do
whatever it is I think I need—
a sort of peace in the valley for me.
But it’s truer to say my course goes through
the darker valley of the shadow.
And the shadow is proverbial,
of course, hard to describe, but the psalm
addresses it well enough. My soul
has been restored a thousand times,
but then it languishes. I get it—
nothing is easy, the struggle is part
of the so-called journey. The journey
must be proverbial too—I mean,
its not like I’m going anywhere,
just sitting in my silent room.
I sit a lot in a red chair.
I stare into space and sometimes
I don’t feel anything at all.
There’s probably something underneath
I’m missing or not fully getting.
But that’s part of it all, to be
in the dark, unknowing. To be unknowing
is a biggie when it comes to faith.
I wouldn’t want to know it all,
to have a vision so complete
you don’t have any doubts or wonders.
Why I must suffer and impair
myself in order to feel the depth
of love is a total mystery
to me. I’d prefer to go outside
and simply be alive in the green
and weather. Oh, I can do that well
enough, and have the whole transcendent
thing, but then the darkness like
a specter comes to rest beside me,
twitching, and everything becomes
abstract, proverbial, and low.
And I think, ironically, it’s dark,
It’s utter dark, this thing I must
Pass through. And thus the red chair
I occupy, from which I see
the world and am involved in love.
I’m so involved with love it’s hard
to fathom, hard to tell how much.
From my perspective, my love for the world
does not have end and has no measure.
There is no poetry in that
or a man sitting in a red chair.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Maurice Manning: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Vittoria Colonna*

Vittoria Colonna (1492—1547) is an Italian poet, who was also an influential patron of the arts. She is the first woman to have published a poetry collection under her own name. After her husband died at war, she wrote many love poems to his memory which became popular.

During the 1530s she became active in religious reform, and began writing love sonnets addressed to God — which became even more influential. She pushed the traditional Petrarchan form in a new direction to express her relationship with Christ. The first edition of her Rime was published in 1538, and appeared in twelve further editions before her death.

In 1531, Colonna commissioned Titian to paint a large portrait of Mary Magdalene — one of the figures of female spirituality from scripture and early church history she selected as role models for herself and other Christian women.

She became close friends with Michelangelo — influencing his poetry, and sharing the common conviction that faith was to be experienced personally, rather than merely dictated by the church. They both believed that one of the best ways to enhance such faith was through art. She commissioned his black chalk drawing of the Virgin Mary, Pietà for Vittoria Colonna (1540) for her personal meditation.

The following translation is by Jan Zwicky and appears in in Burl Horniachek’s anthology, To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry.

Sonnets for Michelangelo — 41

When to the one he most loved, Jesus
opened what was in his heart,
when he spoke of the betrayal, the plot
that was to come, it broke
the heart inside his friend. In silence—
for the others must not know—
the tears cut gutters in his face.
But seeing this,
his master held him to his breast,
and before the ditch of pain
had closed inside, had closed his eyes
in sleep.
No eagle ever flew as high
as the divine one in the moment of that falling.
This was God, who was himself alone,
both light and mirror. His rest
true rest, his sleep
true sleep, and peace.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Vittoria Colonna: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.