Franz Wright*

Franz Wright (1953—2015) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet — who, together with his father James Wright, are the only father/son pair to have both won the prize. His win was for the book Walking to Martha’s Vineyard (Knopf, 2003).

Ironically it was in part his feeling of abandonment by his father that led to his mental health struggles. In one interview he said,
-----“I reached a point, in my mid-40s, when I got so sick I could no
-----longer function. I was not able to write anymore. I despaired and
-----thought everything had failed me, even writing, which was the only
-----thing I felt I had going… God works through human beings. I don't
-----have any doubt about that. It horrifies me when I think of what
-----would have happened to me had my wife and I not gotten together.
-----It reminds me again that I'm not in control, that something else
-----made all this happen… [F]rom that point on I had a great desire to
-----become formally involved in the church. I always had an interest in
-----Christianity, and I studied it as an intellectual pursuit. I always
-----loved the New Testament as a work of art. The ‘something else’ was
-----a certain experience of the literalness of what the Bible said and the
-----literal grace in my life. It was the happiest time of my life, and
-----intensely miraculous.”

Although he has his detractors, Wright has been highly praised by several leading critics. In the New York Times Book Review, Langdon Hammer said of Wright’s God’s Silence (Knopf, 2006): “In his best poems, Wright grasps at the ‘radiantly obvious thing’ in short-lined short lyrics that turn and twist down the page. The urgency and calculated unsteadiness of the utterances, with their abrupt shifts of direction, jump-cuts and quips, mime the wounded openness of a speaker struggling to find faith.” And in the Huffington Post, Anis Shivani called Franz Wright’s 2013 book, F, among the best books of poetry yet produced by an American, and identified him as "our greatest contemporary poet."

The Raising of Lazarus

Adapted from the original notebook fragment written by Rainer Maria Rilke in Spain in 1913.

Evidently, this was needed. Because people need
to be screamed at with proof.
But he knew his friends. Before they were
he knew them. And they knew
that he would never leave them
there, desolate. So he let his exhausted eyes close
at first glimpse of the village fringed with tall fig
trees — 
immediately he found himself in their midst:
here was Martha, sister of the dead
boy. He knew
she would not stray,
as he knew which would;
he knew that he would always find her
at his right hand,
and beside her
her sister Mary, the one
a whole world of whores
still stood in a vast circle pointing at. Yes,
all were gathered around him. And once again
he began to explain
to bewildered upturned faces
where it was he had to go, and why.
He called them “my friends.” The Logos, God’s
creating word, — the same voice that said
Let there be light.
Yet
when he opened his eyes,
he found himself standing apart.
Even the two
slowly backing away, as though
from concern for their good name.
Then he began to hear voices;
whispering
quite distinctly,
or thinking:
Lord,
if you had been here
our friend might not have died.
(At that, he slowly reached out
as though to touch a face,
and soundlessly started to cry.)
He asked them the way to the grave.
And he followed behind them,
preparing
to do what is not done
to that green silent place
where life and death are one.
By then other Brueghelian grotesques
had gathered, toothlessly sneering
across at each other and stalled
at some porpoise or pig stage
of ontogenetical horrorshow, keeping
their own furtive shadowy distances
and struggling to keep up
like packs of limping dogs;
merely to walk down this road
in broad daylight
had begun to feel illegal,
unreal, rehearsal,
test — but for what!
And the filth of desecration
sifting down over him, as a feverish outrage
rose up, contempt
at the glib ease
with which words like “living”
and “being dead”
rolled off their tongues;
and loathing flooded his body
when he hoarsely cried,
“Move the stone!”
“By now the body must stink,”
some helpfully suggested. But it was true
that the body had lain in its grave four days.
He heard the voice as if from far away,
beginning to fill with that gesture
which rose through him: no hand that heavy
had ever reached this height, shining
an instant in air. Then
all at once clenching
and cramped — the fingers
shrunk crookedly
into themselves,
and irreparably fixed there,
like a hand with scars of ghastly
slashing lacerations
and the usual deep sawing
across the wrist’s fret,
through all major nerves,
the frail hair-like nerves — 
so his hand
at the thought
all the dead might return
from that tomb
where the enormous cocoon
of the corpse was beginning to stir.
Yet nobody stood there — 
only the one young man,
pale as though bled,
stooping at the entrance
and squinting at the light,
picking at his face, loose
strips of rotting shroud.
All that he could think of
was a dark place to lie down,
and hide that wasted body.
And tears rolled up his cheek
and back into his eyes,
and then his eyes began
rolling back into his head ...
     Peter looked across at Jesus
with an expression that seemed to say
You did it, or What have you done?
And everyone saw
how their vague and inaccurate
life made room for his once more.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Franz Wright: first post, second post.

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

Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926) is an Austrian poet born in Prague. Although he is not a Christian, he did receive an intensely Catholic upbringing through his mother. This provided him with Christian imagery and stories, which significantly influenced his concepts of the spiritual life as he created his own mythological landscape.

When Rike refers to God he has his own pantheistic ideas in mind — although for a reader with Christian understanding of who God is, the interpretation might often remain orthodox.

Rainer Maria Rilke is known for his lyrical intensity — particularly in his Duino Elegies which begins, Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic / orders? And even if one of them pressed me / suddenly to his heart: I’d be consumed / in his stronger existence…

In my own poem “Response to Rilke” I have my angelic narrator reply,
----There are few angels---to firsthand hear your cries
--------for some circle the earth
----------------turning away terrors you’ve no knowledge of…
----& though I once was called---to oversee your sojourn
----it was never mine---to turn you left or right
---------------------------or hold you in my embrace…

So many translations of Rilke’s poems appear in journals, anthologies, books, and on the internet, including by such noteworthy poets as Seamus Heaney. Since, like most of you, I don’t speak German, I must content myself with English translations, comparing one with another, and hanging onto the versions that grip me most.

I have been arrested by Rilke’s poem “Autumn” (“Herbst” in German) from The Book of Images many times in various translations. The subtleties from one translation to another deepens my appreciation of the original poem.

Susan McLean translates the opening couplet as
----The leaves are falling, falling from on high,
----As if far gardens withered in the sky.

And Robert Klein Engler has the third line read:
----to teeter with the grace of letting go.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The following beautiful version is a translation by Charles L. Cingolani.

Autumn

The leaves fall, as from afar,
as if withered in heaven's remote gardens;
it is with reluctance that they fall.

And during the nights weighty earth falls
from all the stars into solitude.

All of us fall. This hand falls here.
And look at others: All of them fall.

But there is One, Who holds what falls
with infinite tenderness in His hands.

Even though this is my favourite translation, I appreciate some alternate ways certain lines are carried into English.

Edward Snow renders the final couplet as:
----And yet there is One who holds this falling
----with infinite softness in his hands.

And J.B. Leishman translates it:
----And yet there’s One whose gently-holding hands
----This universal falling can’t fall through.

Despite Rilke’s fragmented acceptance of a Biblical concept of God, his poem does draw us toward a beautiful truth.

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.

Mark S. Burrows

Mark S. Burrows is an American poet and professor living in Bochum, Germany, where he is on the faculty of Protestant University of Applied Sciences, and is Poetry Editor for Spiritus (John Hopkins University). He has translated many poets, including in the book-length collections Prayers of a Young Poet by Rilke, and Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart (with Jon M. Sweeney).

His poetry and translations have appeared in such publications as Christian Century, Anglican Theological Review, and Poetry. His newest book, The Chance of Home (2018, Paraclete Press), is a collection of his own poetry; it is the source for the following poem.

A Stubborn Parable

I don’t know what Nature is: I sing it.
—Fernando Pessoa

This morning, sitting in a small enclosed garden,
I notice a sprig of green clinging improbably to

a dark stone wall, its roots rising from a slender
crease where a stray seed once fell, carried by

the winds, perhaps, or some wayward bird—who
could ever tell? It somehow found an edge of soil

and held out against the thrust of winter’s snow
and ice, lifting itself up toward the sun against

an unforgiving face of stone—a parable of grit,
the resilience of song, a strong resonance of hope.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.

Richard Jones

Richard Jones is a professor of English at Chicago's DePaul University, where he directs the Creative Writing Program. His poetry books include The Blessing: New & Selected Poems (2000) which won the Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry, and Apropos of Nothing (2006) both published by Copper Canyon Press. For more than 30 years, he has served as editor for the literary journal Poetry East. His poetry has appeared in anthologies edited by Billy Collins (Poetry 180) and Garrison Keillor (Good Poems).

When asked about his teaching, Richard Jones says,
------“Writing poetry can be a hard and humbling discipline—an art
------that demands great erudition and mastery, and which tests the
------will and the imagination. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke framed
------the challenge of poetry: 'You must change your life.' And so
------poetry assaults complacency, insensitivity, and arrogance.
------Ordinary wisdom tells us to hurry blindly through our day;
------poetry asks that we slow down, listen, and regard all that
------which is marvelous, both the insignificant as well as the divine.”

The following poem first appeared in Image and is from his book The Correct Spelling & The Exact Meaning (Copper Canyon, 2010)

Normal

------Tent Revival, 1957

When things get back to normal
God will put on black robes
and ascend to the mercy seat
to judge the world, the ruined
cities, the devastated hills,
the living and the risen dead.
When things get back to normal,
He’ll open the Book of Life
and read what each man has done,
said, and written, reciting our words
and deeds to the angels to see
if there is any forgiveness
like honey on our tongues.
When things get back to normal
all will stand before God
and be burned like dead branches
or blessed with the incomprehensible fire
of mercy. When things get back to normal,
we will be standing on the threshold of heaven,
a kingdom of singing where at last we will learn
the meaning and purpose
of poetry.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Richard Jones: 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.

B.H. Fairchild

B.H. Fairchild is an American poet who rose to prominence with the attention his third collection The Art of the Lathe (1998) received; it won several awards and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He demonstrates in that collection his preoccupation with craft, and his own history working alongside his father in a machine shop. Fairchild`s poems often deal with working-class people, and the sacramental quality of work. His two subsequent collections are Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest (2003) which received the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Usher (2009).

It has been said that “Fairchild`s faith is not something proclaimed; it is something inhabited.” In an Image interview with Paul Mariani, Fairchild said that “being a Christian no longer seems to present a problem of belief for me, or at least not in the same way it once did... It`s simply who I am.”

The Deposition

-----------------------------------And one without a name
Lay clean and naked there, and gave commandments.
--------------------—Rilke, “Washing the Corpse” (trans. Jarrell)

Dust storm, we thought, a brown swarm
plugging the lungs, or a locust-cloud,
but this was a collapse, a slow sinking
to deeper brown, and deeper still, like the sky
seen from inside a well as we are lowered down,
and the air twisting and tearing at itself.

But it was done. And the body hung there
like a butchered thing, naked and alone
in a sudden hush among the ravaged air.
The ankles first—slender, blood-caked,
pale in the sullen dark, legs broken
below the knees, blue bruises smoldering
to black. And the spikes. We tugged iron
from human flesh that dangled like limbs
not fully hacked from trees, nudged
the cross beam from side to side until
the sign that mocked him broke loose.
It took all three of us. We shouldered the body
to the ground, yanked nails from wrists
more delicate, it seemed, than a young girl’s
but now swollen, gnarled, black as burnt twigs.
The body, so heavy for such a small man,
was a knot of muscle, a batch of cuts
and scratches from the scourging, and down
the right side a clotted line of blood,
the sour posca clogging his ragged beard,
the eyes exploded to a stare that shot
through all of us and still speaks in my dreams:
I know who you are.

------------------------So, we began to wash
the body, wrenching the arms, now stiff
and twisted, to his sides, unbending
the ruined legs and sponging off the dirt
of the city, sweat, urine, shit—all the body
gives—from the body, laying it out straight
on a sheet of linen rank with perfumes
so that we could cradle it, haul it
to the tomb. The wind shouted.
The foul air thickened. I reached over
to close the eyes. I know who you are.

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

Donald Hall

Donald Hall lives on the farm in New Hampshire that once belonged to his great-grandparents. He attended Harvard and Oxford, and in 1953 he became poetry editor of The Paris Review; this gave him the opportunity to interview such poets as Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Although Hall’s first collection Exiles and Marriages (1955) brought him early success, he now says, “I no longer like very much of it.” Most critics believe his recent poetry is his best.

When he and his wife — the poet Jane Kenyon, who was 19 years younger than Hall — moved from Michigan to the New Hampshire farm, they visited the South Danbury Church on that first Sunday. The minister quoted Rilke in his sermon, which surprised Hall. He said when interviewed for The Paris Review, “It began from a social feeling, but moved on—from community to communion.” The couple became regular attenders, were reading the Gospels and early Christian writing, and soon the atheism he had decided on at age 12 melted away. He hesitantly discusses his faith, as it seems to make others embarrassed.

In 1995, after 23 years of marriage, Jane Kenyon died of leukemia. This hole in his life is significant in his subsequent writing. Donald Hall was appointed poet laureate of the United States in 2006.

Christmas party at the South Danbury Church

December twenty-first
we gather at the white Church festooned
red and green, the tree flashing
green-red lights beside the altar.
After the children of Sunday School
recite Scripture, sing songs,
and scrape out solos,
they retire to dress for the finale,
to perform the pageant
again: Mary and Joseph kneeling
cradleside, Three Kings,
shepherds and shepherdesses. Their garments
are bathrobes with mothholes,
cut down from the Church's ancestors.
Standing short and long,
they stare in all directions for mothers,
sisters and brothers,
giggling and waving in recognition,
and at the South Danbury
Church, a moment before Santa
arrives with her ho-hos
and bags of popcorn, in the half-dark
of whole silence, God
enters the world as a newborn again.

A Carol

The warmth of cows
-----That chewed on hay
and cherubim
Protected Him
-----As small He lay.

Chickens and sheep
-----Knew He was there
Because all night
A holy light
-----Suffused the air.

Darkness was long
-----And the sun brief
When the Christ arose
A man of sorrows
-----And friend to grief.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Donald Hall: 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