W.H. Auden*

W.H. Auden (1907—1973) is an English poet, who significantly influenced the direction of 20th century poetry. Although raised in the church, he grew into atheism, even as he found poetry to be his vocation. By the late 1930s, however, he faced troubling questions that eventually led him to return to church, and to declare himself a Christian. One such question was, if he’d been given the gift of poetry, who was the giver?

He moved to the United States in 1939 and began teaching at the University of Michigan. In 1948 Auden won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Age of Anxiety. From 1956 to 1961, he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford.

Auden had for years been a practicing homosexual — even though, even in his pre-conversion days, he saw this as morally wrong. It remained an issue for him for the rest of his life, even as he and his long-time partner, continued to live together in a passionless relationship.

In his latter years, he divided his time between New York City and Austria. He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973. The following poem appeared in 1942.

For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes —
Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week —
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully —
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about W.H. Auden: first post, second 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.

W.R. Rodgers

W.R. Rodgers (1909―1969) is a Belfast poet, who served as a Presbyterian minister, before becoming a broadcaster with the BBC in London, at the invitation of Louis MacNeice. His first collection, Awake! and Other Poems was published in 1941, with its first edition being almost completely wiped out during the London Blitz. His early poetry was greatly influenced by W.H. Auden.

At the BBC he broadcast a number of significant programs on Irish writers. In 1966 he moved to California to become Writer-in-Residence at Pitzer College. It was in California that he died in 1969.

A booklet, put together by the BBC concludes with the following: “Rodgers’ ashes were returned to Belfast and after a memorial service in First Ballymacarret Presbyterian Church ― which he had attended as a boy ― he was buried in Loughgall. The Minister-poet’s life had come full circle. Seamus Heaney read a short selection of Rodgers’ poetry at the memorial service ― reflecting his importance for a new generation of northern writers.”

The following poem, demonstrates Rodgers’ war-era modernism. It first appeared in Horizon in 1943, and later (I believe) in his 1952 collection Europa and the Bull.

Christ Walking on the Water

Slowly, O so slowly, longing rose up
In the forenoon of his face, till only
A ringlet of fog lingered round his loins;
And fast he went down beaches all weeping
With weed, and waded out. Twelve tall waves
Sequent and equated, hollowed and followed.
O what a cockeyed sea he walked on,
What poke-ends of foam, what elbowings
And lugubrious looks, what ebullient
And contumacious musics. Always there were
Hills and holes, pills and poles, a wavy wall
And bucking ribbon caterpillaring past
With glossy ease. And often, as he walked,
The slow curtains of swell swung open and showed,
Miles and smiles away, the bottle-boat
Flung on one wavering frond of froth that fell
Knee-deep and heaved thigh-high. In his forward face
No cave of afterthought opened; to his ear
No bottom clamour climbed up; nothing blinked.
For he was the horizon, he the hub,
Both bone and flesh, finger and ring of all
This clangorous sea. Docile, at his toe's touch,
Each tottering dot stood roundaboutly calm
And jammed the following others fast as stone.
The ironical wave smoothed itself out
To meet him, and the mocking hollow
Hooped its back for his feet. A spine of light
Sniggered on the knobbly water, ahead.
But he like a lover, caught up,
Pushed past all wrigglings and remonstrances
And entered the rolling belly of the boat
That shuddered and lay still. And he lay there
Emptied of his errand, oozing still. Slowly
The misted mirror of his eyes grew dear
And cold, the bell of blood tolled lower,
And bright before his sight the ocean bared
And rolled its horrible bold eyeballs endlessly
In round rebuke. Looking over the edge
He shivered. Was this the way he had come?
Was that the one who came? The backward bowl
And all the bubble-pit that he had walked on
Burst like a plate into purposelessness.
All, all was gone, the fervour and the froth
Of confidence, and flat as water was
The sad and glassy round. Somewhere, then,
A tiny flute sounded, O so lonely.
A ring of birds rose up and wound away
Into nothingness. Beyond himself he saw
The settled steeples, and breathing beaches
Running with people. But he,
He was custodian to nothing now,
And boneless as an empty sleeve hung down.
Down from crowned noon to cambered evening
He fell, fell, from white to amber, till night
Slid over him like an eyelid. And he,
His knees drawn up, his head dropped deep,
Curled like a question-mark, asleep.

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.

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.

Gerard Manley Hopkins*

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844—1889) was not a popular poet in his own lifetime, perhaps because his idiosyncratic style was not like that of his contemporaries. None of his now-famous poems were even published until well after his death. He was raised in a family that valued both faith and artistic expression. In 1867 when he became a Catholic priest, he burned all of the poetry he had written to date, saying he would not write unless it was by the wish of church authorities. It wasn't until 1875, with the encouragement of his superior, when the German ship "Deutschland" was wrecked in a storm, that he began writing again.

Hopkins' poems finally appeared in book form in 1918, but did not begin selling well until after the second edition appeared in 1930. He became a major influence on the development of poetry in the twentieth century, including upon such poets as T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas.

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring —
----When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
----Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
----The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
----The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
----A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
----Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
----Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Gerard Manley Hopkins: 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.

W.H. Auden*

W.H. Auden (1907—1973) is one of the major poetic voices of the twentieth century. Born in York, England, he studied English at Oxford University. His first collection, Poems, was privately printed in 1928. A much more influential collection of the same name was published with the help of T.S. Eliot in 1930. His many honours include the 1948 Pulitzer Prize, The Bollingen Prize (1953) and the National Book Award (1956). Joseph Brodsky once said that Auden had "the greatest mind of the twentieth century".

Even through his years of professed atheism, Auden remained interested in Christianity. In 1940 he returned to the Anglican Church. Biographer Humphrey Carpenter said of Auden's transformation, "The last stage in his conversion had simply been a quiet and gradual decision to accept Christianity as a true premise. The experience had been undramatic, even rather dry."

Friday's Child

(In memory of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred at Flossenbürg, April 9, 1945)

He told us we were free to choose
But, children as we were, we thought—
"Paternal Love will only use
Force in the last resort

On those too bumptious to repent."
Accustomed to religious dread,
It never crossed our minds He meant
Exactly what He said.

Perhaps He frowns, perhaps He grieves,
But it seems idle to discuss
If anger or compassion leaves
The bigger bangs to us.

What reverence is rightly paid
To a Divinity so odd
He lets the Adam whom He made
Perform the Acts of God?

It might be jolly if we felt
Awe at this Universal Man
(When kings were local, people knelt);
Some try to, but who can?

The self-observed observing Mind
We meet when we observe at all
Is not alarming or unkind
But utterly banal.

Though instruments at Its command
Make wish and counterwish come true,
It clearly cannot understand
What It can clearly do.

Since the analogies are rot
Our senses based belief upon,
We have no means of learning what
Is really going on,

And must put up with having learned
All proofs or disproofs that we tender
Of His existence are returned
Unopened to the sender.

Now, did He really break the seal
And rise again? We dare not say;
But conscious unbelievers feel
Quite sure of Judgement Day.

Meanwhile, a silence on the cross,
As dead as we shall ever be,
Speaks of some total gain or loss,
And you and I are free

To guess from the insulted face
Just what Appearances He saves
By suffering in a public place
A death reserved for slaves.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about W.H. Auden: 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.

George Herbert*

George Herbert (1593—1633) had not published a book of poetry in his own lifetime, but his book The Temple did appear shortly after his death in 1633. He and John Donne are the most influential of what we today call the Metaphysical Poets —a group that also includes, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvel and Thomas Traherne.

It seems that Herbert's ambition had nothing to do with fame, but with looking deeply into his own soul and seeking to be honest before God. Even so, his fame outstrips that of many who were seekers of a reputation. His influence is felt, not only in the poetry of the seventeenth century, but also in such writers as Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden.

Herbert's poetry is suitable for spiritual meditation—helpful as we seek to reflect on God's faithfulness, and on our own fickleness.

Love III

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
-----------Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
-----------From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
-----------If I lacked anything.

“A guest," I answered, “worthy to be here”:
-----------Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
-----------I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
-----------“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
-----------Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not," says Love, “who bore the blame?”
-----------“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down," says Love, “and taste my meat.”
-----------So I did sit and eat.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about George Herbert: first post, third post, fourth post. You can also find a George Herbert poem that grew out of Isaiah 55 at: The 55 Project.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new 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.

C.S. Lewis*

C.S. Lewis (1898—1963) is one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Because of the way his mind worked, forming analogies to explain the complex ideas he was presenting, his fiction often had much more going on than what was merely on the surface. He is well-known for such creations as The Screwtape Letters (1942) written from the point-of-view of a senior demon dispensing advice to an underling on how to undermine the spiritual progress of a human subject — or The Great Divorce (1946) which tells of an imagined bus tour of heaven for those who dwell in hell.

I have chosen to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death by releasing my poetry collection Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis (Cascade Books), which further interacts with Lewis's fascinating way of looking at things.

He will also be honoured at Westminster Abbey on November 22nd — the anniversary of his death — when a memorial stone will be ceremoniously unveiled in Poets' Corner. Other poets honoured in the South Transept include Geoffrey Chaucer, William Blake, W.H. Auden, and former Lewis student John Betjeman.

Prayer

Master they say that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream
— One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they
Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo! The well’s are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The Listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about C.S. Lewis: first post, third post

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new 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.

George MacDonald

George MacDonald (1824–1905) is a Scottish writer best known as a novelist, but he also wrote in such genres as poetry, sermons, and literary criticism. He was a Congregational minister, who mentored the young Lewis Carroll, encouraging him to publish his stories of Alice which were popular with MacDonald’s many children.

His greatest influence is as a writer of fantasy — both for children (he would say “for the child-like”) and for adults. His best children’s books are The Princess and the Goblin (1872) [read my brief review here] and its sequel The Princess and Curdie (1882). His masterpieces of adult fantasy are Phantastes and Lilith — both published in 1895.

MacDonald greatly influenced many authors, including G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis. Lewis referred to him as his master, and said, “...what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness.” This quality comes through in MacDonald’s other works as well, which W.H. Auden confirms.

Approaches

When thou turn’st away from ill,
Christ is this side of thy hill.

When thou turnest toward good,
Christ is walking in thy wood.

When thy heart says, “Father, pardon!”
Then the Lord is in thy garden.

When stern Duty wakes to watch,
Then his hand is on the latch.

But when Hope thy song doth rouse,
Then the Lord is in the house.

When to love is all thy wit,
Christ doth at thy table sit.

When God’s will is thy heart’s pole,
Then is Christ thy very soul.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about George MacDonald: 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

Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) is a Russian poet who early faced the displeasure of the Soviet government. He was discriminated against for his Jewish background, and when he was just 23 years old was arrested and tried for “parasitism”. This brought him to the attention of the West. Many campaigned for his release until he was eventually expelled from his home country. W.H. Auden was among those who helped him to settle in the United States, where he became poet-in-residence at the University of Michigan, in 1973.

While still in Russia, Brodsky had learned Polish and English so that he could translate such poets as Czeslaw Milosz, and John Donne. Even after having come to the U.S. he wrote his poetry in Russian, and then often translated it into English. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and in 1991 he became poet laureate of the United States.

From 1962 to 1993 Joseph Brodsky wrote a Christmas poem virtually every year. These poems have been collected in his book Nativity Poems. Brodsky called himself a “Christian by correspondence”, since he often felt insecure in his faith; even so, within his verse he acknowledges deep truths.

Christmas Star

In a cold time, in a place more accustomed
To scorching heat, to flat plains than to hills,
A child was born in a cave to save the world.
And it stormed, as only winter’s desert can.

Everything seemed huge to him: his mother’s breast
The yellow steam of the camels’ breath, the Magi,
Balthazar, Caspar, Melchior, their gifts, carried here.
He was all of him just a dot. And the dot was a star.

Attentively and fixedly, through the sparse white clouds
Upon the recumbent child, on the manger, from afar,
From the depths of the universe, from its very end,
A star watched over the cave. And that was the father’s gaze.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Joseph Brodsky: 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

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

Betsy Sholl

Betsy Sholl was appointed Poet Laureate of Maine in 2006; her term ends this year. She teaches at, both, the University of Southern Maine, and Vermont College of Fine Arts — and has won several awards for her poetry.

Luci Shaw said in Radix, “A kind of fierce honesty pierces much of Sholl’s writing, revealing her proclivity for examining her own heart through the lens of the events and objects she discovers.” This is well-demonstrated in the poem included below, which is the final poem from her seventh collection: Rough Cradle (Alice James Books, 2009).

The journal Image records her words about her approach to writing poetry,
--------“...what starts a poem is usually the experience of paradox or
--------contradiction, two equally true perceptions or emotions
--------co-existing: beauty and pain, love and fear, life and decay.
--------I love Auden’s comment that poetry is the clear expression of
--------mixed emotions, and Czeslaw Milosz’s notion about poetry as
--------a ‘passionate pursuit of the real.’ Of course “the real” eludes
--------us, but the pursuit enlarges us and keeps us aware of the
--------ultimate reality, God.”

Life and Holiness

I couldn’t finish the book because the end
no longer existed, the final words on life
and holiness, that old coin with its two sides
impossible to see at once, so each face
makes you long for the other—unless, of course,
the coin’s been rubbed down, almost out,
as my book was, not dog-eared, but dog-chewed,
a big chunk torn off its lower right,
and the whole book ending coverless
on page 118, so it’s hard to read
the thoughts without thinking of their fate,
and the message bound to what carries it:
Life and Holiness by Thomas Merton,
bound to our dog named Dreug, Russian for friend,
who also ate the edge of my purple dress
as I sat talking on the couch, plus a wooden apple,
and every chair rung in the house. It’s hard
not to think of the monk being chewed on
by silence, gnawed down, past ritual and custom,
to a desert of naked prayer, a dark night
where nothing’s left but the self’s empty shell,
the soul cracked open for something else to rush in,
which the words were just getting to
when Dreug, that zealous friend, aching and driven,
turned the matter into slobber and wag,
his new teeth editing, so the book
ends with:
-------------------------------------------...For such... (crunch)
---...lovers of God, all things, whether they appear...
-----------...in actuality good. All things manifest the...
---------------------...All things enable them to grow in...

Here it stops, the promise digested,
our big brown dog a better reader than I,
licking his lips, swallowing the words, taking in
the such and all things, however they appear.
And were they, in actuality good?
Was the back cover, the spine glue, the wood
or rage pulp of each missing page? “Complete
and unabridged,” it says just where the teeth marks
bite, where the paper’s rough edge, its newly exposed
microscopic threads meet air and morning light,
as if words could turn into life, into window glass
with bickering sparrows, children walking
to school, as Dreug, with his spotted face,
his feathery toes, watches all things
manifest the— enable them to grow in—
As to holiness, you lovers of God, must all things
come to an edge where words stop, and hunger—
that faithful friend who eats away what once
would have been so easy to read—begins?

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

John Betjeman

Sir John Betjeman (1906—1984) was more popular with the British public than he ever was with the literary establishment. His verse did not share the modernist characteristics of his peers, but reflected the techniques of earlier times. He received a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1969. He was also appointed Britain’s Poet Laureate in 1972 — a post he held until his death.

As a boy he attended Highgate School in London, where he was taught by T.S. Eliot. His school career was less than impressive, though. At Magdalen College, Oxford, his tutor C.S. Lewis thought of him as an "idle prig” who spent his time socializing rather than doing his work; Betjeman ended up leaving Oxford without a degree. Even so, he managed to gain the attention of Louis MacNeice and W.H. Auden, who both influenced his work.

Over time, Betjeman became committed to the Anglican church and Christian faith. He said: "...my view of the world is that man is born to fulfil the purposes of his Creator i.e. to Praise his Creator, to stand in awe of Him and to dread Him. In this way I differ from most modern poets, who are agnostics and have an idea that Man is the centre of the Universe or is a helpless bubble blown about by uncontrolled forces."

His poetry often has a satirical tone, and is characterized by references to English localities and particularities of culture that are already becoming dated. Betjeman was public about his faith, although he readily admitted his doubts, as in the following poem.

The Conversion of St. Paul

What is conversion? Not at all
For me the experience of St Paul,
No blinding light, a fitful glow
Is all the light of faith I know
Which sometimes goes completely out
And leaves me plunging into doubt
Until I will myself to go
And worship in God's house below —
My parish church — and even there
I find distractions everywhere.

What is Conversion? Turning round
To gaze upon a love profound.
For some of us see Jesus plain
And never once look back again,
And some of us have seen and known
And turned and gone away alone,
But most of us turn slow to see
The figure hanging on a tree
And stumble on and blindly grope
Upheld by intermittent hope.
God grant before we die we all
May see the light as did St Paul.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about John Betjeman: 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

Geoffrey Hill

In June 2010, Geoffrey Hill was overwhelmingly elected the 44th Professor of Poetry at Oxford University — a post established in 1708, that has been held by such celebrated poets as Matthew Arnold, W.H. Auden and Seamus Heaney. Until now, he has been conspicuously passed over for such honours. The witty name of his 2006 collection Without Title, has now lost its punch.

Hill’s poetry has often been criticised for being deliberately allusive, complex, and full of red-herrings, partly because he uses foreign words (untranslated) and obscure references (unfootnoted). In this he has often been compared with T.S. Eliot. According to Gregory Wolfe of Image, “The subjects that preoccupy Hill” are “the mystery of sin, our forgetfulness of the past, the enormous responsibility that rests on those who use words in the public realm, and the triumph of vanity and superficiality in contemporary culture”.

The following excerpt is from the book-length poem, The Triumph of Love (1998). It consists of 150 sections — perhaps reflecting the number of Psalms in the Old Testament — and like the Psalms it is both penitential and accusational. One target of the poem is the error of World War II and its sad aftermath; here he also wrestles with finding an appropriate poetic voice for expressing the horrors of the war and the postwar period.

from The Triumph of Love XVII

If the gospel is heard, all else follows:
the scattering, the diaspora,
the shtetlach, ash pits, pits of indigo dye.
Penitence can be spoken of, it is said,
but is itself beyond words;
even broken speech presumes. Those Christian Jews
of the first Church, huddled sabbath-survivors,
keepers of the word; silent, inside twenty years,
doubly outcast: even so I would remember—
the scattering, the diaspora.
We do not know the saints.
His mercy is greater even than his wisdom.
If the gospel is heard, all else follows.
We shall rise again, clutching our wounds.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Geoffrey Hill: 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

Charles Williams

Charles Williams (1886–1945) worked all his adult life for Oxford University Press, and lived in London. He belonged to the famous informal literary group, the Inklings, which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. His most celebrated poetry, found in the volumes, Taliessin Through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars, concerns Arthurian Legend.

Besides poetry, Williams wrote plays, theology, biography, criticism and novels, but did not achieve the success of Lewis and Tolkien. Today he is best known for his seven novels, including The Place Of The Lion and All Hallows Eve, which may be called magic realism, or as T.S. Eliot described them, “supernatural thrillers”.

In his poem, “On The Curcuit”, W.H. Auden describes how individual places he visited in the United States were unmemorable unless he experienced a “blessed encounter, full of joy” meeting “here, an addict of Tolkien, / There, a Charles Williams fan.” Auden would have considered himself to be both.

Although comfortable with continual questioning, Charles Williams was all his life dedicated to his Anglican Christian faith.

Christmas

He who knows all things knows not now
Whither He came, or why, or how.

He who sees all things can but see
A dim and clear Maternity:

Whose mortal mouth alone can teach
Omniloquence its human speech.

But, as from those soft wandering hands,
A universal grace expands.

His blood, in motion regular,
Decrees the course of sun and star.

Creation, leaning o'er the Child,
Beholds its image undefiled.

And His fine breath, in sweet recall,
Draws all things to the heart of all.

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

W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden (1907—1973) is considered by many to be one of the poetic masters of the twentieth century. He was influenced by T.S. Eliot stylistically, and by Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poetic techniques. He alienated many of those most interested in his poetry — by rejecting the left-wing political views that had established him in the late 1930s, and by leaving England for the United States in 1939.

Embracing Christianity also distanced him from many of his readers, but his public homosexuality didn’t make him an attractive figure to most Christians. He said he was drawn to reaffirm his Anglican faith in 1940, due to the influence of Charles Williams. Dietrich Bonhoffer was a major influence on the development of Auden’s theology towards the end of his life.

The following poem is the final of seven in a series entitled Horae Canonicae. The poet sees the Christian life as a life in community. Like Peter when he realized he had denied Jesus, we need to be awakened — by the natural world and by the church — to our self-imposed isolation, of which we need to repent.

Lauds

Among the leaves the small birds sing;
The crow of the cock commands awaking:
In solitude, for company.

Bright shines the sun on creatures mortal;
Men of their neighbours become sensible:
In solitude, for company.

The crow of the cock commands awaking;
Already the mass-bell goes dong-ding:
In solitude, for company.

Men of their neighbours become sensible;
God bless the Realm, God bless the People:
In solitude, for company.

Already the mass-bell goes dong-ding;
The dripping mill-wheel is again turning:
In solitude, for company.

God bless the Realm, God bless the People;
God bless this green world temporal:
In solitude, for company.

The dripping mill-wheel is again turning;
Among the leaves the small birds sing:
In solitude, for company.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about W.H. Auden: 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

John Berryman

John Berryman (1914–1972) was raised in the Catholic church, but had abandoned it. Throughout his life he suffered from alcoholism and depression; the suicide of his father, when Berryman was eleven years old, also haunted him throughout his life.

His early poems show the influences of Auden, Yeats and Hopkins. In 1964 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his innovative collection 77 Dream Songs — which demonstrated his originality and established his reputation.

During 1969 and 1970 he checked himself in for rehab several times, and soon had also embraced Christianity. Even in his faith statement Eleven Addresses to the Lord — which concludes his book Love & Fame (1970) — he questions more than he acknowledges.

On New Years’ Eve 1971 he celebrated eleven months alcohol free, but his emotional instability caught up with him a week later; he jumped to his death from the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis.

from Eleven Addresses to the Lord

10

Fearful I peer upon the mountain path
where once Your shadow passed, Limner of the clouds
up their phantastic guesses. I am afraid,
I never until now confessed.

I fell back in love with you, Father, for two reasons:
You were good to me, & a delicious author,
rational & passionate. Come on me again,
as twice you came to Azarias & Misael.

President of the brethren, our mild assemblies
inspire, & bother the priest not to be dull;
keep us week-long in order; love my children,
my mother far & ill, far brother, my spouse.

Oil all my turbulence as at Thy dictation
I sweat out my wayward works.
Father Hopkins said the only true literary critic is Christ.
Let me lie down exhausted, content with that.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about John Berryman: 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