Cameron Brooks

Cameron Brooks is a South Dakota poet, who lives in Sioux Falls. He earned his MA in theological studies from Princeton Seminary, and more-recently an MFA in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University, where he had Scott Cairns, Jennifer Maier, and Mischa Willett as professors. He is representative of a new generation of Christian poets who captures the universal through the particularity of place and of his own experience.

His first poetry collection, Forbearance, has just appeared as part of the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. I am pleased to have been able to work with Cameron Brooks as his editor.

Bruce Beasley calls this new book: “a gorgeously written evocation and meditation on life lived among the prairies, orchards, flooded farms, ‘gaunt silo[s]’ of South Dakota’s High Plains.” And says that “Brooks loves words and their glorious mouthfeels as much as he loves the world itself…”

The following poem is from Forbearance.

The Mower and the Nun

The man who mows the ditch
between the strips of interstate
found it worthwhile to leave us
patches of wild sunflowers
every several miles.
Even at eighty-per-hour
you can't miss ‘em: sunny thumbprints
pressed against the paper
bag browns of late September.
I will never thank him.

And I will never thank the nun
I saw watering her brittle yard
with a hose—in full garb!
That strange religious habit
of the celibate salt of this dearth.
Doesn't she know October
is coming and November is coming
and December comes only to steal
and kill and destroy? She knows
life, life abundantly.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.

Gilbert Luis R. Centina III

Gilbert Luis R. Centina III (1947—2020) is a Filipino writer and Augustinian friar whose output includes nine poetry collections. He was an international, multilingual writer who lived in the Philippines, Peru, the United States, and Spain — and who wrote in English, Spanish, and two Philippine languages: Hiligaynon and Tagalog.

His two novels are Wages of Sin, which was published in Honolulu in 1988, and Rubrics and Runes (2013) which addresses various scandals by priests within the Catholic church.

He died due to complication of the coronavirus in Spain. For his body of poetic work in Spanish, he was posthumously awarded the Premio José Rizal de las Letras Filipinas.

The following poem is from Centina’s 1974 collection Glass of Liquid Truths.

Genuflection

I hear the choir-conversion
Wake senses through my ears,
I see heavenly vision
In the vista of a hymn.
I watch the gleaming chandeliers
Exude their hidden grace
Above the vigil candles
Incensed with fragrant flames.

This is the Cathedral of Silence
Where he has led me in,
How strong his Passion echoes
Inside these cloistered walls.
All things here trodden by the calm
Of yet unfathomed peace,
The sight is awed to stillness,
The soul to holier aims.

O choir-conversion that I hear
I breathe the wisdom of your tale!

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.

Marjorie Maddox*

Marjorie Maddox is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, in Pennsylvania. To enumerate just some of her achievements, count the 17 collections of poetry she has published — awards received including the Yellowglen Prize, an Illumination Book Awards Medal, the Foley Poetry Prize, and several chapbook awards — as well as the more than 700 poems, stories, and essays she’s published in journals and anthologies.

Her new book Seeing Things (2025, Wildhouse Publishing) will appear on February 28th. Amid the advance praise for this poetry collection, Jeanne Murray Walker has said, “It’s surely one of the best books I have read this year.” It is a very personal book where Marjorie Maddox finds herself between her mother’s advancing dementia and her daughter’s depression, with troubling memories of her own.

The following poem is a tribute from one friend to another, both of whom are fine poets, one of whom died far too young of inflammatory breast cancer. I have had the privilege of editing poetry collections for both Marjorie Maddox (True, False, None of the Above) and Anya Krugovoy Silver (Second Bloom) as part of the Poiema Poetry Series. This poem first appeared in Presence, and is from Marjorie’s new book Seeing Things.

Photo with Bald Heads

— for Anya Krugovoy Silver and Noah Silver

Or nearly; the baby fuzz is hers,
compliments of the cancer we seldom speak,
though she does—loudly and often—but not now.
Instead, on this matte finish, she calmly cradles
the red-faced infant, his small mouth open,
life from the still-living pulsing.
His soft spot already
sprouts strands she’ll touch
and touch again. See
how she stares out at us
or at God, just this side of the pictureperfect
smile she owns
in the bright flash
of her dark room. See how
she embraces, with her
sleep-deprived, wideawake
eyes, much more
than the omniscient
one-eyed camera
could ever claim. Only she
can reveal her See
this is me there, here, now,
grabbing my own ever after,
the camera clicks and subtle shifts
that follow: her liturgy not of beginnings
or ends, but persistence, holy continuation
into our space of now, brimming
just so with this immortal moment of joy.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Marjorie Maddox: 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.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825―1911) is a poet, journalist, public speaker, and story writer. She was born in Baltimore to free Black parents. She became involved in the abolitionist cause, assisting slaves in their journeys on the Underground Railroad. She was also an activist in the women’s suffrage and temperance movements.

She is the author of many poetry collections, including Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854), and The Sparrow’s Fall and Other Poems (1894). Her story “The Two Offers” was the first short story published by an African American. She also published several novels and essay collections.

The motivation for her activism was her faith in Christ. She took on the powerful, white status quo that justified slavery through the twisting of scripture. While speaking at rallies, her language was heavily flavoured by references to the Bible, particularly to the direct teaching and actions of Jesus.

The following poem is from her 1846 book Forest Leaves (also known as Autumn Leaves).

That Blessed Hope

Oh touch it not that hope so blest
------Which cheers the fainting heart,
------And points it to the coming rest
------Where sorrow has no part.

Tear from heart each worldly prop,
------Unbind each earthly string;
------But to this blest and glorious hope,
------Oh let my spirit cling.

It cheer’d amid the days of old
------Each holy patriarch’s breast,
------It was an anchor to their souls,
------Upon it let me rest.

When wand’ring in the dens and caves,
------In goat and sheep skins drest,
------Apeel’d and scatter’d people learn’d
------To know this hope was blest.

Help me to love this blessed hope;
------My heart’s a fragile thing;
------Will you not nerve and bear it up
------Around this hope to cling.

Help amid this world of strife
------To long for Christ to reign,
------That when he brings the crown of life
------I may that crown obtain.

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.

Teresa of Ávila*

Teresa of Ávila (1515—1582) is a Spanish nun who was a central figure in the Catholic Church’s counter-reformation. Her autobiography and other writings, express and justify her experience of mystic faith.

From childhood she and her brother were fascinated with ideas of martyrdom — running away from home when she was seven with the intent of fighting the Moors and becoming martyrs themselves. Once she reached adulthood, against her father’s wishes she entered a Carmelite convent. Early on, she was drawn to austere religious practices, became severely ill for three years, and was close to death.

In 1558 she embarked on a program to return the Carmelite order to its austere roots. Once she had established 16 additional convents, conflict arose between factions within the Carmelite order. She was ordered to found no further convents and to retire to the convent in Seville. By 1577 John of the Cross — who in 1568 had established a monastery of Carmelite reform for men — was imprisoned in Toledo. This struggle was resolve in 1579 through the establishment of an independent order of Discalced Carmelites.

Loving Colloquy

If all the love you have for me,
my God, is like my love for you,
say, what detains me, that I do?
Or what is it delaying thee?
— Soul, what of me are your desires?
— My God, no more than you to see.
— And what most in you fear inspires?
— What I fear most is losing thee,
A soul within its God now hidden,
whatever else should it desire,
but to e’er greater love aspire,
and in that love remain all hidden,
returned anew into love’s fire?
One love that owns me I request,
my God, my soul within you centered,
for making me the sweetest nest
where union can the best be entered.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Teresa of Ávila: 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.

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson (1871—1938) is a poet and civil rights activist who was born in Florida to black parents who had never been slaves. His father was a headwaiter at a Jacksonville resort, and a preacher. James attended Atlanta University, since such opportunities were not available for Blacks in Florida.

His expansive career included become a teacher and school principal, a practicing lawyer, and a writer for musical theatre in partnership with his brother Rosamond. He served as a U.S. consul in Venezuela, and later in Nicaragua, and then became an editorial writer for the New York Age. In 1917 he published his first poetry collection, Fifty Years and Other Poems, James Johnson worked for many years as an advocate for Black rights with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, until 1930 when he became a part-time teacher at Fisk University.

Although agnostic he was greatly influenced by the spiritual heritage of the Black church. His influential compilations, The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) and it’s follow up, drew attention to this important musical tradition. This work also influenced his most celebrated poetry collection God’s Trombones (1927, Viking) in which he found a dignified form for presenting Black religious experience and practice.

The following poem is from God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. The book was illustrated by Aaron Douglas.
“© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.”

Listen Lord

A Prayer

O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before thy throne of grace.
O Lord — this morning —
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning —
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord — open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.

Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners —
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.
Lord — ride by this morning —
Mount your milk-white horse,
And ride-a this morning —
And in your ride, ride by old hell,
Ride by the dingy gates of hell,
And stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge.

And now, O Lord, this man of God,
Who breaks the bread of life this morning —
Shadow him in the hollow of thy hand,
And keep him out of the gunshot of the devil.
Take him, Lord — this morning —
Wash him with hyssop inside and out,
Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.
Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,
And make his words sledge hammers of truth —
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning —
Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let him look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine his imagination,
Put perpetual motion in his arms,
Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,
Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,
And set his tongue on fire.

And now, O Lord —
When I've done drunk my last cup of sorrow —
When I've been called everything but a child of God —
When I'm done travelling up the rough side of the mountain —
O — Mary's Baby —

When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death —
When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet —
Lower me to my dusty grave in peace
To wait for that great gittin' up morning — Amen.

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.

Richard Osler*

Richard Osler (1951—2024) is a Canadian poet who began his writing career as a journalist with The Financial Post newspaper in 1975, and through the ‘80s was a regular panellist on the weekly "Business Column" portion of the national CBC radio program, Morningside.

As a poet, Richard was one to primarily point to the work of others through such activities as his long-running blog Recovering Words, and one who dedicated his time to leading poetry writing workshops and poetry as prayer retreats. His first full-length collection Hyaena Season was published by Quattro Books in 2016.

One connection I had with Richard was selecting, and working with him on, one of his poems for the outdoor art exhibits of Imago’s project Crossings which appeared in downtown and midtown Toronto throughout Easter 2022. His last e-mail to me came less than a month before he was taken by cancer in late October. He said, “These last 16 weeks since diagnosis [have been] the most meaningful of my life.”

He says in a poem from his new book:
----Give death a face a voice directed me.
----My own face now wise with the news
----of death inside of me. If I walk
----to the mirror and look is it me I see
----or death now come out from hiding
----inside my face?

Richard died just hours after he had attended an online launch for his final poetry collection, What Holiness Will I Bring? (2024, Frontenac House). In describing Richard’s insistence on revealing to us this “art of knowing / and being known” Ilya Kaminsky said “This insistence is generosity. What do we learn? We learn to live passionately, intently, with a fire of clarifying search. We learn poetry is a spiritual discipline, the kind in which the world is our friend.”

Many years ago, Richard sent me a copy of his privately printed chapbook Not Yet (2006). Here, I will share one of the poems from that book.

Remnants

Faith is this day:
Waves gather up and fall.
Sun pours in from the east.
Tethered boats move
out on the bay. The breeze knows
my face. The brown dog belongs
to its stick, my throwing, the water
that holds them both up
and her sad moaning when I stop.

I have faith in this breathing
and writing and the crow’s black caw.
These geese left with three goslings
from April’s twelve. The smaller stick
chewed and now in pieces at my feet.
The volcano’s black stones
lost in a mountain’s last breath.
The driftwood logs left on the beach.
My own life, coming apart
into the smaller things —
this day
holding my faith in the promise
of another.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Richard Osler: 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.