Paul Claudel

Paul Claudel (1868—1955) is a French dramatist and poet, who was nominated six times for the Nobel Prize. He was also a French diplomat, serving in the United States, China, Tokyo, Brazil, and in several European cities.

Although he had been an unbeliever in his teens, on Christmas Day when he was 18 years old he heard a choir singing Vespers in Notre Dame cathedral; he reported, "In an instant, my heart was touched, and I believed." He was a faithful Catholic for the rest of his life.

He is often criticized for his conservative beliefs, including the antisemitism common to the France of his day; he, however, was opposed to the views of Nazis as early as 1930, and in 1940 he actively interceded for the Jewish husband of a distant relative who had been arrested by the Vichy government.

W.H. Auden, whose political views differed from Claudel’s, wrote the following couplet:
-----"Time will pardon Paul Claudel,
-----Pardon him for writing well"
which speaks to the conundrum of admiring an artist who voices opinions quite different from your own. George Steiner paired Claudel with Brecht as the two greatest dramatists of the 20th century.

The following is from "Magnificat" which is the third of the Five Great Odes as translated by Edward Lucie-Smith.

from Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

O those long bitter streets of years ago. And the time when I was
-----single and alone!
Walking through Paris, that long street which goes down to Notre
-----Dame!
I was like the young athlete going towards the Stadium, amidst
-----an eager group of friends and trainers,
One whispers in his ear, another, to strengthen the tendons,
-----bandages the arm given over to him.
It was thus that I walked amid the hurrying feet of my gods!
Fewer murmurs in the forest of St-Jean in summertime,
Less noise in Damascus when the sigh of the desert and the sound
-----of the plane-trees moving at evening in the ventilated air
Are joined to the speech of the waters that fall from the mountains
-----in tumult,
Than in this young heart filled with desires.
O Lord God a young man and the son of woman is more pleasing
-----to you than a young bull.
And, meeting you, I was like a wrestler who yields,
Not because he thinks himself weak, but because his opponent
-----is stronger.
You called me by my name
Like one who knew it, you chose me from among all those of my
-----generation.

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Peter Levi

Peter Levi (1931—2000) is a British poet whose father was Jewish and Mother was Roman Catholic. He became a Jesuit novice when he was just 17, and became a priest. He left the priesthood in 1977 to get married. In 1984 he became Oxford Professor of Poetry. He wrote more than twenty volumes of poetry including: The Gravel Ponds (1960), Death Is A Pulpit (1971) and Reed Music (2007). He also edited The Penguin Book of English Christian Verse (1984).

When The Paris Review asked for his advice to young writers, part of what he said was, "Steer clear of the writing departments of universities..." and then he added, "Writing is like breathing or it ought to be. One’s got to write poems. Like one has to go to church. Not out of social duty, or because there’s any pressure on one to do so. Not even out of reaction to people who say one shouldn’t do so. But just because of some decent, natural good behavior. One might as well go on with it."

The following poem was included in the anthology British Poetry Since 1945 by Edward Lucie-Smith (Penguin).

"To speak about the soul"

To speak about the soul.
I wake early. You don't sleep in summer.
In the morning a dead-eyed nightingale is still awake in you.
What has been done and suffered
with whatever is left to be suffered
is in the soul.
Oracles are given elsewhere. Their speech is announced with
------bronze.

In the early morning
you see women walking to the sanctuaries:
a light touch of sun on the whitewash:
a light touch of fire burning the oil.
You tell me nothing.
This is the desert I will write about.
The desert is not an island: the island is not enchanted: and the
------desert is no habitation for men.
The bird with the burnt eyes sang sweetest.
A desert further off
One small simple cloud. Heat at midday. A little constellated
------handwriting. Heat at midnight.
You never say.
To be woken by hearing
the voices of the enchanted birds
and the voices of the disenchanted birds.

Say what is like a tree, like a river, like a mountain, a cloud over
------the sun?
My memory has been overshadowed
by that live light and by that dying light.

The soul is no more than human.

The rising sky is as wide as the desert.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Peter Levi: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

David Jones

David Jones (1895—1974) is a modernist poet, of Welsh heritage, who lived in London. His work was highly praised by influential contemporaries such as T.S. Eliot. More recently, Edward Lucie-Smith mentioned, “The extreme complexity of David Jones’s work...” in his introduction to Jones in British Poetry Since 1945 — calling him a “twentieth century equivalent of William Blake.”

Jones served as an infantryman in World War I and was wounded in the Battle of the Somme. He fictionalized his experience in his first extensive poem, In Parenthesis, in which he seeks to encapsulate military experience from the beginning of time.

His second major work, The Anathemata, reflects his faith, and his understanding of art. Jones believed that art should be a form of worship, and that worship is a form of art. W.H. Auden called The Anathemata, “one of the most important poems of our times.”

A, a, a, Domine Deus

I said, Ah! what shall I write?
I inquired up and down
------------(He's tricked me before
with his manifold lurking-places.)
I looked for His symbol at the door.
I have looked for a long while
------------at the textures and contours.
I have run a hand over the trivial intersections.
I have journeyed among the dead forms
------------causation projects from pillar to pylon.
I have tired the eyes of the mind
------------regarding the colours and lights.
I have felt for His wounds
------------in nozzles and containers.
I have wondered for the automatic devices.
I have tested the inane patterns
------------without prejudice.
I have been on my guard
------------not to condemn the unfamiliar.
For it is easy to miss Him
------------at the turn of a civilisation.
I have watched the wheels go round in case I might see the living creatures like the appearance of lamps, in case I might see the Living God projected from the machine. I have said to the perfected steel, be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a, Domine Deus, my hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible crystal a stage-paste . . . Eia, Domine Deus.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about David Jones: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca