Matthew Pullar

Matthew Pullar is an Australian poet, and the author of the new collection This Teeming Mess of Glory (Wipf & Stock, 2025). His earlier collections include The Swelling Year, Les Feuilles Mortes, and Anno Domini. In 2013 he was awarded the SparkLit Young Australian Writer of the Year Award.

As a teacher, he is a Literature and English Teacher at Heathdale Christian College, and is the Cross Curriculum Co-ordinator (First Nations) there.

Andrew Lansdown has said about Pullar’s new collection:
------“While reading Matthew Pullar’s poetry, one is struck by its
------simplicity and directness, prized qualities in any form of
------communication. His poems are mostly confessional and devotional
------in nature and are without pretension or pride. It is refreshing,
------in an age when the political and the perverse seem to predominate
------in the arts, to read poems exploring the fundamentals of human
------existence — family, faith, failure, and grace.”

The most recent post at Poems For Ephesians is also a poem by Matthew Pullar.

The following poem first appeared in Ekstasis, and is from This Teeming Mess of Glory.

Breathbodyprayer

…that form of prayer in which the soul makes use of the members
of the body to raise itself more devoutly to God. In this way the
soul, in moving the body, is moved by it.
------— The Nine Ways of Prayer of Saint Dominic

Fooled by the body’s misfirings —
the thought misdirected; the brain
connecting anguish to the neutral moment —
you cannot pray, for every
earnest ascent is duped by the pounding
head that cries out, Terror, terror
on every side. And you,
longing for peace where there
is no peace, cannot spy the waiting,
pumping heart that welcomes,
that is already here, is open.

So prayer, at these times, is as much
a breath as a hand outstretched,
an air-parched mouth gulping as it clutches clouds.
And while the body,
in its movement, stretches
its wild, warring muscles,
it wrestles and settles

encased behind the billowing
ribs of its maker,
who did not despise these scars.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.

Cynewulf

Cynewulf (pronounced “kin-eh-wolf”) is a 9th century poet of Old English — one of the few who are known by name, and one of only four whose work is known to survive today. There are only two manuscripts of his work which survive from the early medieval period. He is thought to have lived in Northumbria — due to the Anglian dialect of Anglo-Saxon he wrote in — and believed to be a monk or a priest, because of the sophistication of his poetry, and that he was well-educated enough to have knowledge of works written in Latin.

Because he signed each of the four long poems known to be his, with a runic acrostic signature, there is no debate as to their authorship. He has, at times, also been thought to be the author of other poetic works including The Dream of the Rood.

The following is a prose translation of the opening lines of Cynewulf’s extensive three-part poem The Christ as translated by Charles Huntington Whitman and published in 1900 by the Athenæum Press. The three sections are “The Advent,” “The Ascension,” and “The Last Judgment.”

From The Christ

Thou art the corner-stone which the builders once rejected in their work; fitting indeed is it for Thee, O king of glory, to become the head of this noble temple, and to join in bond secure the broad walls of adamantine rock, so that throughout the cities of earth all things endowed with sight may wonder evermore. Reveal then, righteous and triumphant One through Thy wisdom, Thine own handiwork, and leave wall firm against wall. The work hath need that the Master Builder, the King Himself should come forthwith restore the house that beneath its roof hath fallen into ruin. He formed the body, the limbs of clay; and now is it time for Him, the Prince of life, to deliver this miserable host from their enemies, the wretched from their fears as He full oft hath done.

O Ruler and righteous King, Thou who holdest the key and openest life, bless us with victory, with that glorious success denied unto him whose work availeth naught! Verily in our need do we speak these words: We beseech Him who created man that He chose not to pronounce judgment upon us who, sad at heart, sit yearning in prison for the sun’s joyous course until such time as the Prince of life reveal light unto us, become our soul’s defense, and compass the feeble mind with splendor; or all this may He make us worthy, we whom He admitted to glory when, deprived of our heritage, we were doomed to turn in wretchedness unto this narrow land.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.

Paul the Apostle

Paul the Apostle (c. 5—c. 64/65 AD), as outlined in the Acts of the Apostles, was a persecutor of the early Christian church, until Jesus spoke to him on the road to Damascus. He became the apostle to the Gentiles — journeying throughout the Roman world. He is the author of a large portion of the New Testament — written in the form of letters to individuals and to young churches in such locations as Ephesus, Galatia, Corinth, and Rome.

Perhaps due to the nature of his letters, which focus on teaching, admonishing and encouraging, he is not thought of as a poetic writer. However, Paul often used poetic descriptions to help his readers to better understand. For example, in Ephesians 6 he writes of the armour of God, comparing salvation, righteousness and faith to the armour used by Roman soldiers. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 12 he compares people in the church to parts of the body — having the foot saying it is not as worthy as the hand to be part of the body.

The following is one of the most celebrated poetic passages in the New Testament. Often called the love chapter, it is often read at weddings, and woven into song lyrics. Joni Mitchell performs her own close paraphrase of the passage, from her 1982 album Wild Things Run Fast.

Here is the passage from the New International Version.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.