David Gascoyne*

David Gascoyne (1916—2001) is an English poet whose first poetry collection appeared when he was just sixteen. He travelled to Paris in 1933 and became not only influenced by the surrealist movement, but became its spokesman to Britain — translating the poetry of Salvador Dali, Benjamin Peret, and André Breton.

Gascoyne also became a significant poet himself, writing original surrealist verse in his well-received second book of poems Man’s Life Is This Meat. By his third collection, however he had lost faith in surrealism, and began writing the mystical poems of an anguished Christian seeker. Elizabeth Jennings wrote, “I do not think … he really found his own voice or his own individual means of expression until he started writing the poems which appeared in the volume entitled Poems, 1937–42…”

The following poem is one of them, which was written in 1938.

Kyrie

Is man’s destructive lust insatiable? There is
Grief in the blow that shatters the innocent face.
Pain blots out clearer sense. And pleasure suffers
The trial thrust of death in even the bride’s embrace.
The black catastrophe that can lay waste our worlds
May be unconsciously desired. Fear masks our face;
And tears as warm and cruelly wrung as blood
Are tumbling even in the mouth of our grimace.
How can our hope ring true? Fatality of guilt
And complicated anguish confounds time and place;
While from the tottering ancestral house an angry voice
Resounds in prophecy. Grant us extraordinary grace,
O spirit hidden in the dark in us and deep,
And bring to light the dream out of our sleep.

The following is one version of a piece by Gascoyne from his New Collected Poems, although I’ve encountered a significantly different version elsewhere.

The Son of Man is in Revolt

The Son of Man is in revolt
Against the god of men.
The Son of God who took the fault
Of men away from them
To lay it in himself on God
Has nowhere now to rest God’s head
But in the heart of human solitude.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about David Gascoyne: 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.

Ruth Pitter*

Ruth Pitter (1897—1992) is a British poet who published eighteen collections, and received many honours, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1955. In 1974 she became one of the twelve living writers honoured with the title Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature.

She did not embrace poetic modernism — so popular in her day — and because of this has been largely overlooked in ours. Fellow formalist poet Philip Larkin included four of her poems in The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973) — and she has been lauded by several poets and critics. Elizabeth Jennings said in the introduction to Ruth Pitter’s Collected Poems (1996, Enitharmon) that her poetry shows “an acute sensibility and deep integrity.”

Since the wrestling between critics for influence continues, only time will tell whether Ruth Pitter will gain new popularity, or slip into obscurity. Kathleen Raine has expressed she believes Pitter’s poetry “will survive as long as the English language, with whose expressiveness in image and idea she has kept faith, remains.”

The following poem is from Pitter’s book A Trophy of Arms (1936) and is the title poem in a new critical edition of her collected poems, edited by Don W. King (2018, Kent State University Press).

Sudden Heaven

All was as it had ever been—
The worn familiar book,
The oak beyond the hawthorn seen,
The misty woodland’s look:

The starling perched upon the tree
With his long tress of straw—
When suddenly heaven blazed on me,
And suddenly I saw:

Saw all as it would ever be,
In bliss too great to tell;
For ever safe, for ever free,
All bright with miracle:

Saw as in heaven the thorn arrayed,
The tree beside the door;
And I must die—but O my shade
Shall dwell there evermore.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Ruth Pitter: 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.

Elizabeth Jennings*

Elizabeth Jennings (1926—2001) is an Oxford poet, often associated with "The Movement" but always independent in her poetry. She was influenced by Herbert and Hopkins, remaining consistent in her tone without becoming repetitious.

Hester Jones wrote in The Church Times, "Like [her contemporary, Sylvia] Plath, Jennings suffered from mental illness in her adult life, but, as a Roman Catholic, she drew on the tradition of the 'dark night' of St John of the Cross to explore this suffering within the context of faith. Consequently, much of her poetry is marked by moments that contain both momentary glimpses of God's love and the experience of darkness, guilt, and God's absence."

She is one of the poets featured in my new anthology The Turning Aside: The Kingdom Poets Book of Contemporary Christian Poetry — (available here) and through Amazon.

Her Collected Poems 1953-1985 — which she had ruthlessly edited down to 213 pages of the "work she wishes to preserve" — received the W.H. Smith Literary Award. In 2001 she received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Durham University.

The Lord's Prayer

"Give us this day." Give us this day and night.
Give us the bread, the sky. Give us the power
To bend and not be broken by your light.

And let us soothe and sway like the new flower
Which closes, opens to the night, the day,
Which stretches up and rides upon a power

More than its own, whose freedom is the play
Of light, for whom the earth and air are bread.
Give us the shorter night, the longer day.

In thirty years so many words were spread,
And miracles. An undefeated death
Has passed as Easter passed, but those words said

Finger our doubt and run along our breath.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Elizabeth Jennings: first post, 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.

Thomas Traherne*

Thomas Traherne (1637—1674) is a British poet — born in Hereford, England — whose work is only recently coming to light and becoming valued. He was mentioned by Samuel Johnson as one of the metaphysical poets, but few knew his work at that time. In the twentieth century Traherne influenced such writers as Dorothy L. Sayers, Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Jennings and C.S. Lewis.

He is venerated as a saint within the Anglican church. In 2007 four stained glass windows by artist Tom Denny, honouring Thomas Traherne, were installed in Herford Cathedral's Audley Chapel. The photo here is of one of these windows.

The following poem in Traherne's Centuries of Meditations is preceded by these words: "Upon those pure and virgin apprehensions which I had in my infancy I made this Poem."

The Approach

1
That childish thoughts such joys inspire,
Doth make my wonder, and His glory higher,
His bounty, and my wealth more great
It shows His Kingdom, and His work complete.
In which there is not anything,
Not meet to be the joy of Cherubim.

2
He in our childhood with us walks,
And with our thoughts mysteriously He talks;
He often visiteth our minds,
But cold acceptance in us ever finds:
We send Him often grieved away,
Who else would show us all His Kingdom's joy.

3
O Lord, I wonder at Thy Love,
Which did my infancy so early move:
But more at that which did forbear
And move so long, though slighted many a year:
But most of all, at last that Thou
Thyself shouldst me convert, I scarce know how.

4
Thy gracious motions oft in vain
Assaulted me: my heart did hard remain
Longtime! I sent my God away
Grieved much, that He could not give me His joy.
I careless was, nor did regard
The End for which He all those thoughts prepared.

5
But now, with new and open eyes,
I see beneath, as if above the skies,
And as I backward look again
See all His thoughts and mine most clear arid plain.
He did approach, He me did woo;
I wonder that my God this thing would do,

6
From nothing taken first ,I was;
What wondrous things His glory brought to pass!
Now in the World I Him behold,
And me, enveloped in precious gold;
In deep abysses of delights,
In present hidden glorious benefits.

7
These thoughts His goodness long before
Prepared as precious and celestial store
With curious art in me inlaid,
That childhood might itself alone be said
My Tutor, Teacher, Guide to be,
Instructed then even by the Deity.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Thomas Traherene: first post, third 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.

Christina Rossetti*

Christina Rossetti (1830—1894) is one of the best-known English poets of the nineteenth century. Her most famous collection is Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862). Her work became somewhat neglected with the rise of modernism in the early twentieth century, but gained a resurgence by the 1970s. She is said to have been a significant influence on Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings and Philip Larkin, among others.

In 1871 she was diagnosed with Graves' Disease, which she bravely endured with the help of her strong faith. She continued publishing poetry at this point, including A Pageant and Other Poems (1881), but primarily focused on devotional prose writing. She was considered the obvious candidate to succeed Alfred, Lord Tennyson as poet laureate — but she developed cancer in 1891, which eventually took her life.

Easter Monday

Out in the rain a world is growing green,
--On half the trees quick buds are seen
----Where glued-up buds have been.
Out in the rain God's Acre stretches green,
--Its harvest quick tho' still unseen:
----For there the Life hath been.

If Christ hath died His brethren well may die,
--Sing in the gate of death, lay by
----This life without a sigh:
For Christ hath died and good it is to die;
--To sleep whenso He lays us by,
----Then wake without a sigh.

Yea, Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again:
--Wherefore both life and death grow plain
----To us who wax and wane;
For Christ Who rose shall die no more again:
--Amen: till He makes all things plain
----Let us wax on and wane.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Christina Rossetti: first post, third post, fourth 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.

Elizabeth Jennings*

Elizabeth Jennings (1926—2001) is the author of more than two dozen volumes of poetry, mostly published by Macmillan and Carcanet. Her family moved to Oxford, when she was six years old, and she lived there for the rest of her life. She was a traditionalist, rather than an innovator — demonstrating a fine lyrical style and mastery of poetic forms. In 1992 she became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

She once wrote, "Only one thing must be cast out, and that is the vague. Only true clarity reaches to the heights and the depths of human, and more than human, understanding." She was discussing the work of other significant authors, but she clearly applied this principle to her own writing.

She is one of the poets to be featured in an upcoming anthology of Christian poetry I am editing for the Poiema Poetry Series.

The Visitation

She had not held her secret long enough
To covet it but wished it shared as though
Telling it would tame the terrifying moment
When she, most calm in her own afternoon,
-----Felt the intrepid angel, heard
His beating wings, his voice across her prayer.

This was the thing she needed to impart
The uncalm moment, the strange interruption,
The angel bringing pain disguised as joy,
But mixed with this was something she could share
-----And not abandon, simply how
A child sprang in her like the first of seeds.

And in the stillness of that other day
The afternoon exposed its emptiness,
Shadows adrift from light, the long road turning
In a dry sequence of the sun. And she
-----No apprehensive figure seemed,
Only a moving silence through the land.

And all her journeying was a caressing
Within her mind of secrets to be spoken.
The simple fact of birth soon overshadowed
The shadow of the angel. When she came
-----Close to her cousin’s house she kept
Only the message of her happiness.

And those two women in their quick embrace
Gazed at each other with looks undisturbed
By men or miracles. It was the child
Who laid his shadow on their afternoon
-----By stirring suddenly, by bringing
Back the broad echoes of those beating wings.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Elizabeth Jennings: first post, third 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.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo (1475—1564) is considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time. He is famous for his painting on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling — particularly for the scene depicting the creation of Adam — although he didn't consider himself to be a painter. As a sculptor he is known for his marble statue of David (in Florence), and his Pietà, (which is now in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome). His skill as an architect is demonstrated by his design for the dome of St. Peter's, which was completed after his death.

All of these wonders my wife and I were able to see on our recent visit to Italy, which inspired me to investigate the poetry and spirituality of the man. Michelangelo said, "The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection." He also said, "Many believe — and I believe — that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him."

It was in the 1530s that he began to write poems, about 300 of which have been preserved. The following translation is by the British poet Elizabeth Jennings.

Sonnet LXXVII

Although it saddens me and causes pain,
The past, which is not with me any more,
Brings me relief, since all that I abhor —
My sin and guilt — will not come back again.

Precious it is to me because I learn,
Before death comes, how brief is happiness:
But sad also, since when at last I turn
For pardon, grace may yet refuse to bless.

Although, Oh God, your promise I attend,
It is too much to ask you to forgive
Those who for pardon have so long delayed.

But in the blood you shed, I understand
What recompense and mercy you've displayed,
Showering your precious gifts that we may live.

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.

Donald Davie

English poet, Donald Davie (1922—1995) was a significant part of “The Movement”, which emerged in Britain during the 1950s, and included such poets as Elizabeth Jennings, and Philip Larkin. Their poetry turned from the imagism of recent poets, to a greater clarity of language and content.

Davie served as an English professor on both sides of the Atlantic, at the University of Essex, Stanford and Vanderbilt. His influence as a critic is as important as his place as a poet. Davie was raised a Baptist — and long defended the dissenting tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — although by the 1970s had, himself, moved over to the Anglican church. He is also known for his verse translations of Boris Pasternak, and as the editor of The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse (1981). In his obituary in The Independent he is called “the defining poet-critic of his generation”. His Collected Poems were published in 2002 by Carcanet.

The following is the opening poem from his 1988 collection, To Scorch or Freeze (Chicago), which is subtitled “Poems about the Sacred”; the book is influenced very much by the Psalms.

The Thirty-ninth Psalm, Adapted

I said to myself: “That’s enough.
Your life-style is no model,
Keep quiet about it, and while
you’re about it, be less overt.”

I held my tongue, I said nothing;
no, not comfortable words.
“Writing block”, it’s called;
very discomfiting.

Not that I had no feelings.
I was in a fever.
And while I seethed,
abruptly I found myself speaking:

“Lord, let me know my end,
and how long I have to live;
let me be sure
how long I have to live.

One-finger you poured me;
what does it matter to you
to know my age last birthday?
Nobody’s life has purpose.

Something is casting a shadow
on everything we do;
and in that shadow nothing,
nothing at all, comes true.

(We make a million, maybe;
and who, not nobody but
who, gets to enjoy it?)

Now, what’s left to be hoped for?
Hope has to be fixed on you.
Excuse me my comforting words
in a tabloid column for crazies.

I held my tongue, and also
I discontinued my journals.
(They accumulated; who
in any event would read them?)

Now give me a chance, I am
burned up enough at your pleasure.
It is all very well, we deserve it.
But shelved, not even with mothballs?

Hear my prayer, O Lord,
and please to consider my calling:
it commits me to squawking
and running off at the mouth.”

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

Jack Clemo

Known as “Poet of the Clay”, Jack Clemo (1916–1994) is a British poet who expressed the unique landscape of his native Cornwall, and his personal vision of Christian faith. He saw the scarred landscape of clay-pits and moulded dumps of white sand waste, where he grew up, as representative of the fall. The industrial language of the china clay mines fills his poems.

His formal schooling ended at age 13 when he began to lose his eyesight. He became deaf at about age twenty, and eventually — nineteen years later — became blind. These problems are not the focus of his writing, although he says in his poem “The Excavator”:
-------------And so I am awake:
-------------No more a man who sees
-------------Colour in flowers or hears from birds a song,
-------------Or dares to worship where the throng
-------------Seek Beauty and its old idolatries.

He felt himself to be an outcast throughout his life, because of his disabilities and because of his nonconformist religious views. According to Elizabeth Jennings he was truly “a visionary poet”.

Christ in the Clay-pit

Why should I find Him here
And not in a church, nor yet
Where Nature heaves a breast like Olivet
Against the stars? I peer
Upon His footsteps in this quarried mud;
I see His blood
In rusty stains on pit-props, waggon-frames
Bristling with nails, not leaves. There were no leaves
Upon his chosen Tree,
No parasitic flowering over shames
of Eden's primal infidelity.

Just splintered wood and nails
Were fairest blossoming for him who speaks
Where mica-silt outbreaks
Like water from the side of his own clay
In that strange day
When He was pierced. Here still the earth-face pales
And rends in earhquake roarings of a blast
With tainter rock outcast
While fields and woods lie dreaming yet of peace
‘Twixt God and his creation, or release
From potent wrath — a faith that waxes bold
In churches nestling snugly in the fold
Of scented hillsides where mild shadows brood.
The dark and stubborn mood
Of him whose feet are bare upon this mire,
And in the furnace fire
Which hardens all the clay that has escaped,
Would not be understood
By worshippers of beauty toned and shaped
To flower or hymn. I know their facile praise
False to the heart of me, which like this pit
Must still be disembowelled of Nature’s stain,
And rendered fit
By violent mouldings through the tunnelled ways
Of all he would regain.

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

Elizabeth Jennings

English poet, Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001) lived most of her life in Oxford. She belongs in the first tier of postwar British poets — associated with the group known as “The Movement”, which also includes Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin. Her poems are structured with simple metre and rhyme, giving them a gentle lilt. Besides writing her own poetry, she translated Michelangelo’s sonnets.

Elizabeth Jennings often wrote about paintings and about her faith. The two come together well in her poem “The Nature of Prayer” where she reflects on Van Gogh’s “crooked church” from the painting “The Church at Auvers”.
-------------Maybe a mad fit made you set it there
-------------Askew, bent to the wind, the blue-print gone
-------------Awry, or did it? Isn’t every prayer
-------------We say oblique, unsure, seldom a simple one,
-------------Shaken as your stone tightening in the air?...
Although she avoided autobiographical poetry, she freely wrote about mental illness, which troubled her life, as it had for Vincent Van Gogh.

In 1985 the poet Peter Levi said of Jennings in The Spectator, “She is one of the few living poets one could not do without”. She received many honours and awards throughout her career, including a C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1992.

Lazarus

-----It was the amazing white, it was the way he simply
Refused to answer our questions, it was the cold pale glance
Of death upon him, the smell of death that truly
Declared his rising to us. It was no chance
Happening, as a man may fill a silence
Between two heart-beats, seem to be dead and then
Astonish us with the closeness of his presence;
This man was dead, I say it again and again.
All of our sweating bodies moved towards him
And our minds moved too, hungry for finished faith.
He would not enter our world at once with words
That we might be tempted to twist or argue with:
Cold like a white root pressed in the bowels of earth
He looked, but also vulnerable — like birth.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Elizabeth Jennings: second post, third 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