William Strode

William Strode (c. 1602—1645) was born to a Devonshire family who recognized talent in him, and sent him to London’s Westminster School, and later to Oxford. In 1628 he became a priest. When Richard Corbet became Bishop of Oxford, William Strode became his chaplain. In 1629 he was made a public orator at the university and remained in that role for the rest of his life.

In and around the 1630s, Strode’s verse was hugely popular. One of the most popular poems of the seventeenth century — perhaps only second to Robert Herrick’s “Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May.” — was William Strode’s “On Chloris Walking in the Snow” from the collection Madrigales and Ayres (1632).

Strangely, Strode’s poems slipped into complete oblivion; some were for years thought to have been written by other writers. In 1907 an edited collection, The Poetical Works of William Strode, appeared.

Of Death and Resurrection

Like to the rowling of an eye,
Or like a starre shott from the skye,
Or like a hand upon a clock,
Or like a wave upon a rock,

Or like a winde, or like a flame,
Or like false newes which people frame,
Even such is man, of equall stay,
Whose very growth leades to decay.

The eye is turn'd, the starre down bendeth
The hand doth steale, the wave descendeth,
The winde is spent, the flame unfir'd,
The newes disprov'd, man's life expir'd.

Like to an eye which sleepe doth chayne,
Or like a starre whose fall we fayne,
Or like the shade on Ahaz watch,
Or like a wave which gulfes doe snatch

Or like a winde or flame that's past,
Or smother'd newes confirm'd at last;
Even so man's life, pawn'd in the grave,
Wayts for a riseing it must have.

The eye still sees, the starre still blazeth,
The shade goes back, the wave escapeth,
The winde is turn'd, the flame reviv'd,
The newes renew'd, and man new liv'd.

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.

Anne Askew

Anne Askew (c.1521―1546) is an English freedom fighter who was one of those made famous through John Foxe’s popular book, known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563). She was also one of the first female writers known to have composed in the English language. She was able to read, in a day when many could not ― and was a dedicated reader of the Bible, at a time when reading the Bible in English was suppressed. Believing in scripture, rather than the teaching of the authorities around her, she freely shared her evangelical views.

Although Henry VIII in 1531 had established himself as the head of the Anglican Church, many churchmen still used their influence to maintain the practices of the Roman Church. One of these was the insistence that the elements in the Mass were transformed into the very body and blood of Christ through consecration. Through her reading of scripture, she decided that this wasn’t so.

The powerful religious conservatives tried to use the prosecution of Anne Askew to uncover her connections to Queen Catherine (Parr) and to incriminate the queen and her evangelical household. Askew’s knowledge of scripture enabled her to resist the pressures exerted upon her. She was shut up in the notorious Newgate Prison, and even secretly taken to the Tower of London where she was illegally racked.

The entire story is admirably told by American Book Award winner Rilla Askew, in her most-recent novel Prize for the Fire (2022).

The Ballad which Anne Askew made and sang when she was in Newgate

Like as the armed knight
Appointed to the field,
With this world will I fight
And Faith shall be my shield.

Faith is that weapon strong
Which will not fail at need.
My foes, therefore, among
Therewith will I proceed.

As it is had in strength
And force of Christes way
It will prevail at length
Though all the devils say nay.

Faith in the fathers old
Obtained rightwisness
Which make me very bold
To fear no world's distress.

I now rejoice in heart
And Hope bid me do so
For Christ will take my part
And ease me of my woe.

Thou saist, lord, who so knock,
To them wilt thou attend.
Undo, therefore, the lock
And thy strong power send.

More enmyes now I have
Than hairs upon my head.
Let them not me deprave
But fight thou in my stead.

On thee my care I cast.
For all their cruel spight
I set not by their haste
For thou art my delight.

I am not she that list
My anchor to let fall
For every drizzling mist
My ship substancial.

Not oft use I to wright
In prose nor yet in rime,
Yet will I shew one sight
That I saw in my time.

I saw a rial throne
Where Justice should have sit
But in her stead was one
Of moody cruel wit.

Absorpt was rightwisness
As of the raging flood
Sathan in his excess
Suct up the guiltless blood.

Then thought I, Jesus lord,
When thou shalt judge us all
Hard is it to record
On these men what will fall.

Yet lord, I thee desire
For that they do to me
Let them not taste the hire
Of their iniquity.

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.

J.C. Scharl

Jane Clark Scharl is a poet, essayist, and playwright, who lives with her husband and children in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Michigan. Her new poetry collection, Ponds (2024, Cascade Books) has just appeared as part of the Poiema Poetry Series.

Ponds is her first book which would be considered a collection of poems. She has also published a verse-play Sonnez Les Matines (2023, Wiseblood Books) which imagines three significant figures ― John Calvin, Ignatius of Loyola, and François Rabelais ― as students together in Paris in the 1520s. They discover a dead body, and as they investigate the murder, each must probe deep questions on his own.

J.C. Scharl and Brian Brown, in conjunction with the Anselm Society, have also recently edited the essay collection Why We Create (2023, Square Halo). This book is an examination by numerous thinkers of how we have been created to create.

I am honoured to have worked with Jane Scharl as the editor of Ponds. For those of you attending the Festival of Faith & Writing, in Grand Rapids, Michigan this April (and those who live nearby) I invite you to attend the Poiema Poetry Series reception on Thursday, April 11th at 7:30. Jane Clark Scharl will be one of our many readers.

In her Plough article “Poetry at Home” from last October, she points to the very first recorded words from Adam when God presented him with his wife, and points out that they are written as poetry (Genesis 2:23). Scharl says, “Poetry should be nourished beside the hearth, not in the lecture hall. When we invite poetry into our homes, we make our family life more abundant, but we also help poetry itself grow richer and more beautiful.” Perhaps the best argument to support her premise is the following poem, which is from Ponds.

To My Unborn Child

There is a story of how God,
before anything else existed, was everything.
And one day he looked out and saw
that everything was him, and he knew
that if he wanted to make some other thing,
first he’d have to vacate
some of what is, to make room, you see.
And so (the story goes) he breathed
in a mighty breath and with it
he pulled in a little of himself,
leaving just the smallest hollow
surrounded by the everything
that is him. Then, into
the hollow, he breathed, but kept himself
held back, just a little, and in
that empty space he made all Creation.

I wish I knew, dear little one,
if the story is true, and if
now he sits like this, hands cupped
around the hollow at his center
that is filling up with something
that is not entirely him;
if he too feels it shift and kick,
and what it is he wonders then.

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.

Charles Wesley*

Charles Wesley (1707―1788) along with his brother John were central figures in the Methodist Revival in eighteenth century Britain. Charles was the most significant hymn writer of his day, and is the most prolific hymnist of all time, having written ten times the number of hymns that Isaac Watts did, who comes a distant second.

In 1729, while a student at Oxford, Charles founded the “Holy Club,” which was later joined by John, and by George Whitefield. Beginning in 1738 the Wesley brothers held meetings throughout Britain, which consisted of hymn-singing and preaching.

The following hymn is one of those most identified with Easter Sunday. Most hymnals today only include four to six of Wesley’s eleven verses. In the 19th century an "Alleluia" was added at the end of each line, perhaps to make it fit the tune “Easter Hymn.”

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

“Christ the Lord is risen today”
Sons of men and angels say
Raise your joys and triumphs high
Sing ye heavens, and earth reply

Love’s redeeming work is done
Fought the fight, the battle won
Lo! Our sun’s eclipse is o’er
Lo! He sets in blood no more.

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal
Christ has burst the gates of hell!
Death in vain forbids his rise:
Christ hath opened paradise!

Lives again our glorious King
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
Dying once he all doth save
Where thy victory, O grave?

Soar we now, where Christ has led?
Following our exalted head
Made like him, like him we rise
Ours the cross—the grave—the skies!

What though once we perished all
Partners in our parent’s fall?
Second life we all receive
In our heavenly Adam live.

Risen with him, we upward move
Still we seek the things above
Still pursue, and kiss the Son
Seated on his Father’s throne.

Scarce on earth a thought bestow
Dead to all we leave below
Heaven our aim, and loved abode
Hid our life with Christ in God!

Hid, till Christ our life appear
Glorious in his members here
Joined to him, we then shall shine
All immortal, all divine!

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven!
Praise to thee by both be given
Thee we greet triumphant now
Hail the resurrection thou!

King of glory, soul of bliss
Everlasting life is this:
Thee to know, thy power to prove,
Thus to sing and thus to love!

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

George Herbert*

George Herbert (1593–1633) is an English poet, priest, and orator, who was a member of Parliament briefly during 1624 and 1625.

The two most influential of the seventeenth century English metaphysical poets are George Herbert and John Donne. These poets are significant to the legacy of Christian poetry in the English language, and their influences stretches into other languages as well. Some of the other metaphysical poets include Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, Thomas Traherne, Richard Crashaw, and Joseph Beaumont.

The work of these poets has influenced my own poetry, and the work of so many of the other poets I admire. The very first post here at Kingdom Poets, from back in 2010, is one about George Herbert.

One of the poems in my forthcoming collection Pride Be Not Death (& Other Poems) is a response to Herbert’s poem “Love (3),” another comes from his “Perirrhanterium,” another is after “Denials,” and a fourth arises from a line in the following Herbert poem.

The Cross

---------What is this strange and uncouth thing?
To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,
Until I had some place, where I might sing,
---------And serve thee; and not only I,
But all my wealth and family might combine
To set thy honour up, as our design.
---------And then when after much delay,
Much wrestling, many a combat, this dear end,
So much desired, is giv’n, to take away
---------My power to serve thee; to unbend
All my abilities, my designs confound,
And lay my threat’nings bleeding on the ground.
---------One ague dwelleth in my bones,
Another in my soul (the memory
What I would do for thee, if once my groans
---------Could be allowed for harmony):
I am in all a weak disabled thing,
Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.
---------Besides, things sort not to my will,
Ev’n when my will doth study thy renown:
Thou turnest th’ edge of all things on me still,
---------Taking me up to throw me down:
So that, ev’n when my hopes seem to be sped,
I am to grief alive, to them as dead.
---------To have my aim, and yet to be
Further from it then when I bent my bow;
To make my hopes my torture, and the fee
---------Of all my woes another woe,
Is in the midst of delicates to need,
And ev’n in Paradise to be a weed.
---------Ah my dear Father, ease my smart!
These contrarieties crush me: these crosse actions
Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart:
---------And yet since these thy contradictions
Are properly a crosse felt by the Sonne,
With but four words, my words, Thy will be done.

*This is the fourth Kingdom Poets post about George Herbert: first post, second post, third 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.

Susan Cowger*

Susan Cowger is a poet and artist living in Cheney, Washington, and is the author of two poetry collections: Slender Warble (2020, Poiema/Cascade) and her new book Hawk & Songbird.

What makes this publication particularly sweet, is what the poet has gone through to get here. While the rest of us were anxious about how the pandemic might change our lives, Susan Cowger received her diagnosis — blood cancer: multiple myeloma — an incurable disease. She says,
-----“Like a fledgling careening from the nest, my mind shrilled a frenzy
-----of questions: whywhywhy? No answer. From vertebral collapse to
-----cancer to brain tumor to brain abscess to stem cell transplant,
-----one after the other, I did not find the answer to why. I found
-----Presence… [an] awareness of God I could almost touch: strength
-----embodied standing over me; an ever-watchful eye keeping vigil
-----whose single glance could dash away fear; silent invisible
-----protection, care, love … certainty. God’s Presence alone makes
-----the horrific journey worth every minute.”

Although twenty-five-hundred miles away, I walked with Susan, as one of her many companions in prayer, and am grateful she now has the reasonable hope “that maintenance medicine might keep [her] well enough to eventually die of something else.” I have also been able to partner with her as the editor for both of her full-length poetry books.

Susan Cowger will be one of our readers at the Poiema Poetry Series reception at the Festival of Faith & Writing (on Thursday, April 11th at 7:30) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The following poem is from Hawk & Songbird (2024, Poiema/Cascade).

She Says You Get What You Get

It’s windy on the porch
She props a gimpy leg on a wooden chair
exposes it to sun----She says you get what you get

Ever mumbling to God for attention----something like
look at me look at me and oh wow there it is
another bruise blooming just below the knee

She turns her face to the sky----and draws
a patient breath----In prayer-like motion
she smears salve over the parch of skin
a pauper’s salvation

where pity for a sick thing takes on something akin to
gladness for some attention----Despite the defect
now it’s hard to hate
what she loves----The broken parts
she hands back to God

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Susan Cowger: 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.

Jesse Keith Butler

Jesse Keith Butler is an Orthodox Christian poet who has recently published his first collection, The Living Law, with Darkly Bright Press. He lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children.

By day, Jesse is a program evaluator for the Government of Canada, assessing the effectiveness of government programs in relation to their objectives. He previously did a PhD in education, during which time he published widely in academic journals on the topics of citizenship education, educational policy, and Indigenous education. Jesse and his wife also have a long history of working with Indigenous communities, including two summers spent working with a Christian organization on a First Nations reserve in northern Ontario.

A.M. Juster has written, "With this debut collection, Jesse Butler is joining the growing group of Canadian poets who are taking poetry away from the academy and returning it to a broader audience of poetry lovers. Butler's poems are thoughtful, well-crafted, and a pleasure to read."

The following poem has previously appeared in Solum Journal, and is from The Living Law (2024, Darkly Bright Press).

Villanelle of the Elect

So Jacob was loved, and Esau was hated.
It seems like a bit of an uneven deal.
You won’t stop creating this world you’ve created.

If Esau had hope it was quickly deflated.
The subtle supplanter had him by the heel.
But Jacob was loved, and Esau was hated.

Outside of the city, with heaven ungated
and rungs reaching down, Jacob glimpsed what was real—
you still were creating this world you’d created.

Poor Esau found Jacob’s thin soup overrated
when robbed of his birthright for one meatless meal.
Yet Jacob was loved, and Esau was hated.

You grappled with Jacob. He grunted and grated
while you danced, delighted to meet with such zeal
as you kept creating this world you’d created.

There’s purpose in life but the path isn’t fated.
You unspool these urgings we don’t even feel.
And Jacob was loved. And Esau was hated.
You keep on creating this world you’ve created.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This post was first suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

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.

Laurie Klein*

Laurie Klein is a poet of the Pacific Northwest, the author of Where the Sky Opens (2015) and of the brand new book, House of 49 Doors ― both from The Poiema Poetry Series.

Her name comes up frequently as the writer of the praise chorus “I Love You, Lord” which has been ubiquitous in church circles for years. Its familiarity led guitarist Phil Keaggy to record it as the only cover-tune on his beautiful instrumental album The Wind and the Wheat (1987, Maranatha Music).

When she was featured at Abbey of the Arts, Laurie Klein said, “For me, entering the presence of the sacred means embracing mystery. And I adore mystery. Poems I love evoke — and expose — irresistible gaps: within my understanding, between the lines themselves, betwixt soul and Truth’s unerring glance.”

As Klein’s editor, for both of her full-length collections, I am delighted to see the arrival of this ambitious new book. It is a memoir of the unspeakable, that takes on a family’s disturbing sorrow with remarkable innocence, beauty, and hope.

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner, of The Christian Century, says of House of 49 Doors, “The voice in these remarkable poems belongs to a girl, a spy, a recorder of daydreams and memories of a home and a war-torn, beloved uncle, whose grisly suicide was a family secret. These poems are handprints left in cement. Once you pick up this book, you will be unable to put it down.”

The following poem is from House of 49 Doors.

Words which are not

enough — despite our regrets
and longings — mound,
musty and swept together
like fallen leaves, crackling
with sorrow nearly

unspeakable. Where is solace
meant to settle cleanly as dew?
A life shatters, its hunger
for wholeness hopefully
drifting toward Mystery,

luring us all nearer
the pure, original spark —
a vitality deeper than

we dare believe. Prayers may
falter, but know this:

though language flails
and has too often failed us,
our questions spiral,
eventually intersect
the beguiling Love

that summoned this universe,
which, from our first
shuddering breath,
clear through forever, rekindles
the sacred flint, blazons our way.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Laurie Klein: 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.

Tadhg Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin

Tadhg Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin (1715―1795), known in English as Timothy O'Sullivan, is an Irish poet probably born in County Limerick. There are few records concerning his early life, although it is thought that he was a teacher.

His early verse is typical of Munster poetry of the time, including romantic verse, laments, drinking songs, and eulogies for members of the Catholic gentry. He was publicly a Jacobite supporter, and was once imprisoned in Cork for drinking the health of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In the 1760s he moved to County Waterford and underwent a spiritual conversion, forsaking the writing of secular verse. In the nineteenth century Ó Súilleabháin’s poems were often sung as hymns in Munster churches. The plaque pictured above, was erected in 2001 in the grounds of the Cathedral in Waterford. Ó Súilleabháin died, in 1795, while at prayer in their recently-built Cathedral.

I am indebted to the poet Pádraig J. Daly for sending me a copy of Furnace of Love (Dedalus, 2002) the book of his translations of Tadhg Gaelach Ó Súilleabháin’s religious poetry. The following is from that collection.

from Poem of Jesus

I

Great Son of the resplendent city of enchanting light,
Mercy of Paradise, Person of the Holy Three,
Heart’s Love, pardon my twisted thinking
And steer my soul without turbulence into your kingdom, Jesus.
Amen, O Jesus,
Who bought me dearly
On the cross on Friday,
Your enemies harassing You,
Far from your people,
Your mother beside You,
Pitifully keening;
And I, maliciously,
Since life began in me,
Flaying You fiercely.
Five hundred thousand times
One hundred regrets are mine
That that is how I repaid You.

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.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer is a 14th century poet best known as the author of Canterbury Tales ― a collection of twenty-four stories, voiced by characters on pilgrimage from London to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. They were written mostly in verse, in a London dialect of late Middle English.

Some of Chaucer’s pilgrims (such as the Second Nun) are devout, some (the Pardoner) use religion for personal gain, and some (the Prioress) simply lack spiritual depth. He uses humour and irony, as his characters quote scripture in ways that often demonstrate their own failings. The author sometimes lets his readers decide, through subtle details like showy jewellery, about each pilgrim’s sincerity. The intent, I believe, is to encourage people to be authentic in their faith, and to caution them against the flaws in religious practice in Chaucer’s England.

Chaucer’s Retraction, here in translation, shows how he would like Canterbury Tales to be seen:
--------Now I pray to all who hear or read this little treatise,
--------that if there is anything in it that they like, they thank
--------our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all wisdom
--------and goodness. And if there is anything that displeases them,
--------I pray also that they ascribe it to the fault of my ignorance
--------and not to my will, which would readily have spoken better
--------if I had the knowledge. For our book says, "All that is
--------written is written for our doctrine," and that is my intention.
--------Therefore I beseech you, for the mercy of God, that you pray
--------for me that Christ have mercy on me and forgive my sins,
--------especially my translations and compositions of worldly
--------vanities, which I revoke in my retractions…

The following translation by A.S. Kline is from The Knight’s Tale (Section 2/Lines 807-816) ― the first of the stories told ― and though the story itself comes from a pre-Christian world view, it is written so that it speaks of the sovereignty of God.

from The Knight’s Tale

Destiny, that Minister-General,
Who executes on earth, over all,
The Providence that God saw long before,
Has such power that though all men swore
The contrary of a thing by yea or nay,
Yet there will come to pass upon a day
What will not happen in a thousand years.
For certainly our appetites down here,
Be they for war, or peace, hate or love,
All are ruled by the vision that’s above.

Here is another section, from The Second Nun's Tale, (scroll down to the open tab) that I posted at Poems For Ephesians.

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.

Kristina Erny

Kristina Erny is an American poet and visual artist who was raised as a third-culture teacher’s kid in Seoul, South Korea. She has lived in various parts of the United States ― including in Arizona, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing, and in Kentucky, where she was the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Asbury University ― but has spent much of her teaching career abroad. She and her husband are raising their three children in Shanghai, where she is currently teaching literature and creative writing to international secondary students.

Among the honours her poems have received are the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award, and the Tupelo Quarterly Inaugural Poetry Award, as chosen by Ilya Kaminsky. Her debut poetry collection, Elijah Fed by Ravens, was published this past December by Solum Literary Press. The following poem first appeared in Blackbird and is from her new book.

Elijah and the Widow

Even ravens need crust,------something.
Left behind, everyone left.
It begs the question:
jar bottom,
a flag of surrender?
Hostile, hand-held, the haze.

Always the tone;
never the ringing.
Driven you

to the pot where the flour is
hoped for, hidden—& then, his face in the doorway—have,
eat—Yes, we are eaten—still a future, grim, O,

won’t you come in.
I would have baked the cake &
died. Instead, you perform, participate in
onerous miracle, & tomorrow
wake up, blinking, hoary film under your nails.

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.

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop (1911―1979) is an American modernist poet characterized by agnosticism, yet often wrestling with Christian faith. She was raised first by her maternal grandparents in Nova Scotia and later by her paternal grandparents in Massachusetts.

She published only 101 poems in total, and yet was honoured with the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1956, and the National Book Award in 1970.

Critic Tom Travisano says: “Although Bishop was no churchgoer, Christian motifs appear throughout her poetry. She had a religious nature and education, and the foundations of her work are recognizably Christian.” In 1955 she wrote to Robert Lowell, “I believe now that complete agnosticism and straddling the fence on everything is my natural posture —although I wish I weren’t.”

Similarly, Cheryl Walker, of Scripps College in California, notes that two of Bishop’s favourite poets were Gerard Manley Hopkins and George Herbert. Bishop wrote about, “how really concerned Herbert was with all these insoluble problems of man’s relationship to God... It is real. —It was real and it has kept on being and it always will be, and Herbert just happened to be a person who managed to put a great deal of it into magnificent poetry”

You can hear her reading the following poem which is from The Complete Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1983) at The Poetry Foundation.

At the Fishhouses

Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water’s edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

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.

Petrarch*

Petrarch (Fransesco Petrarca) (1304―1374) is an important Italian poet whose influence ― particularly as the originator and populariser of the sonnet ― is still felt today. Although best known for his poetry, he was also a significant scholar. His influence can be seen in the spread of humanism, which Petrarch saw as being no contradiction with his stand as a dedicated Christian.

Sometime between 1342 and 1353 Petrarch wrote Secretum ― a personal reflection on his life and the significance of his faith to him, in the form of an imaginary dialogue with Augustine. It begins with Augustine criticizing Petrarch for not having dedicated himself completely to God, through his love for the things of this world and his desire for literary fame. Secretum ― though not published within his lifetime, and possibly written only for his private reflection and self-criticism ― also became an important work.

One of the things of this world he was obsessed with was a beautiful, unobtainable woman named Laura, who was married to someone else. The Canzoniere is his book of sonnets and other poems concerning his love for her, and his sorrow at her premature death. The following poem is from The Canzoniere, and was translated by A.M. Juster. This translation appeared in The Christian Century in 2022.

363

Death dimmed the sun that dazzled brilliantly;
my eyes, intact and healthy, are in shade.
She is now dust who made me flame and fade;
like elms or oaks my laurels wilt for me,
so that I see my goal, though agony
remains. No one else made my thoughts afraid
and bold, nor chilled and scorched them, nor conveyed
full hope, nor flooded them with misery.
Released by one who jabs and mollifies,
who tortured me for many years before,
my freedom’s bittersweet, I realize,
and to the Lord I thank and I adore,
whose eyes sustain and oversee the skies,
I turn—world-weary, not desiring more.

Posted with permission of the translator.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Petrarch: 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.

Laura Reece Hogan*

Laura Reece Hogan is the author of two full-length poetry collections. Her new book, Butterfly Nebula, is the 2022 winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry and is published by the University of Nebraska Press. In this collection, Hogan focuses both on the micro and the macro, the deep and the distant, as she ponders the galaxies, life on the ocean floor, flowers, and insects ― from immense nebulae, right down to disembodied human tear glands growing in a petri dish.

Marjorie Maddox has said of Butterfly Nebula, “Astronomical, biological, ecological, theological, metaphorical…How dazzling the shine of these poems, how far-reaching their light."

Besides writing poetry, Hogan is the author of the theology book I Live, No Longer I (2017, Wipf & Stock) which was a winner at the American Bookfest Awards, The Illumination Book Awards, and the Catholic Press Association Book Awards.

The following poem, from the new collection, first appeared in The Inflectionist Review.

Prayer For Traversing the Eye

If I molt
peel and cast
the assemblage,
push aside / bend
behind can I sliver
shiver atoms spectral
can you splinter me
cut down the camel
of me shatter me
until I shed me
can you shove
me through
this frail
slit?

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Laura Reece Hogan: 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.

Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg*

Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg (1633—1694) is an Austrian whose sonnets have much in common with the seventeenth century English Metaphysical poets.

When I first posted about her back in 2017, I mentioned that three Canadian poets whom I know and respect — Sarah Klassen, Sally Ito, and Joanne Epp — had been working together on translating some of Greiffenberg’s work. Little did I know that this project would grab hold of them to the extent that they would produce a book-length manuscript.

That book is Wonder-Work: Selected Sonnets of Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, and consists of their new translations of 65 poems — many of which have not previously been translated into English. The title is well-suited as it reflects the compound nouns of the original German, and the sense of awe that runs through these poems.

The poet-translators had to make significant decisions in bringing Greiffenberg’s sonnets into English. Because conveying her meaning and the beauty of her images was most important, they chose the poetic dance of alliteration and assonance, rather than trying to match the rhyme-scheme of the original German sonnets. One of the sonnets begins, “Oh you whose wisdom dews the stars, the source / of destiny—and yet without their work / your art alone brings everything to pass…”

The English translation of the following poem first appeared in The Polyglot; it is included in Burl Horniachek’s fine anthology To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry (Poiema/Cascade, 2023) and is, of course, from Wonder-Work: Selected Sonnets of Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg (CMU Press, 2024).

On the Holy Spirit’s Wondrous Consolation

Refreshment from on high, heart-quickening breath!
----You heavenly balm! In suffering, Joy-Spirit
----that comforts while defying death and trouble,
----and calls forth in us joy more plenteous than sorrow.
O let my life behold your heart-illumination!
----Let misery be mocked while you are ever praised,
----and I by you sustained with health and strength.
----Waft over troubled waters, as when the world began.
You good God-Spirit, pain-conqueror, overthrow
----the soul-deceiver; let not his heart-tormenting fire
----consume faith's oil in my lamp;
let not his torturous grappling-hooks ensnare me.
----Bedew my rose, O sweet soul’s dew, so she
----may rise up, by your cooling strength, through fire.

Posted with permission of the translators

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg: first post.

A launch event will take place — with Joanne Epp, Sally Ito, & Sarah Klassen — in the Atrium of McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park, Winnipeg, at 7:00 pm on Friday, January 19th. Watch the Live Stream on YouTube , or view it after the fact.

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.

Rubén Darío

Rubén Darío (1867―1916) is a Nicaraguan-born poet known as the father of the Spanish-language literary movement, Modernismo. He began as a child prodigy, who moved to El Salvador and later to Chile, where he published his first book in 1888. In1893, he was appointed Colombia’s Consul to Buenos Aires, and five years after that he became a correspondent in Europe for the Argentinian newspaper La Nación.

Darío was influential on succeeding poets including Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, and Federico Garcia Lorca. According to The Poetry Foundation, “Darío revolutionized poetic structure, stretching lines past conventional stopping places and utilizing wordplay, epithet, and alliteration in innovative ways.”

Although philosophically a Pythagorean dualist, Darío struggled to achieve the balance this implied in light of the Christian faith to which he had been raised. In his poem “Song of Hope” he considers the events of his day in light of scripture:
--------“…Has Antichrist arisen whom John at Patmos saw?
--------Portents are seen and marvels that fill the world with awe,
--------And Christ's return seems pressing, come to fulfill the Law.”
Rubén Darío then submissively says to Christ, expressing his own role in light of this vision:
--------“…My heart shall be an ember and in thy censer lie.”

The following poem is from Songs of Life and Hope, a translation of Cantos de Vida y Esperanza by Will Derusha and Alberto Acereda.

Hope

Jesus, incomparable forgiver of trespasses,
hear me; Sower of wheat, give me the tender
Bread of your hosts; give me, in the face of furious hell,
a lustral grace from rages and lusts.

Tell me this appalling horror of agony
obsessing me, comes only from my heinous guilt,
that upon dying I will find the light of a new day
and then will hear my "Rise up and walk!"

This post was suggested by Matthew White, an Australian Kingdom Poets reader.

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.

John Greenleaf Whittier*

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807—1892) is a poet whose literary ambition, and political aspirations both took a back seat to his dedication to the abolitionist cause — a cause that was not popular in New England. Much of his early verse was written as propaganda for the fight against slavery. He wrote for abolitionist publications, and then eventually became the editor of the influential New England Weekly Review. By 1831 he was a delegate to the national Republican Convention in support of Henry Clay, and then ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1832.

In 1857 Whittier helped found The Atlantic Weekly, which enabled him to publish alongside many of the prominent voices of his day. Even before the U.S. Civil War, his poetry began moving into themes of religion, pastoral life, and a nostalgia for the New England of his youth.

Once his lifelong political cause had been accomplished, his new work led him to become the most popular of the Fireside Poets — alongside such writers as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Cullen Bryant.

Sound Over All Waters

Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands
the chorus of voices, the clasping of hands!
Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn,
Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born!
----------With glad jubilations
----------Bring hope to the nations!
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun:
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

Sing the bridal of nations! with chorals of love;
Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove,
Till the hearts of the people keep time in accord,
And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord!
----------Clasp hands of the nations
----------In strong gratulations:
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

Sound bugles of battle, the marches of peace;
East, west, north, and south, let the long quarrel cease:
Sing the song of great joy that the angels began,
Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man!
----------Hark, joining in chorus
----------The heavens bend o’er us
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun:
Rise, hope for the ages, arise like the sun,
all speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about John Greenleaf Whittier: 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.