Donald Hall*

Donald Hall served in 2006-2007 as the Poet Laureate of the United States — a post recently held by such poets as Billy Collins, W.S. Merwin and Philip Levine. At a young age Hall decided that he would become a poet. He also decided to be an atheist, but he and his wife of twenty three years, the poet Jane Kenyon, experienced the life of faith through the community in New Hampshire where they settled.

After Jane's death from leukemia, Hall expressed his loss through his poetry book, Without (1998), as he continues to often do, right down to in his most recent collection The Back Chamber (2011). In a 2005 article "The Third Thing" in Poetry Magazine he speaks insightfully of their life together, and briefly of the significance of the South Danby Christian Church in their lives. Although his perspectives may not always seem consistent with a life of discipleship, Donald Hall's poems arise from deep reflection and honesty.

This first poem comes from his newest collection, The Back Chamber. The second one is from his earlier collection, Old and New Poems.

Advent

When I see the cradle rocking
What is it I see?
I see a rood on the hilltop
--------Of Calvary.

When I hear the cattle lowing
What is it that they say?
They say that shadows feasted
--------At Tenebrae.

When I know that the grave is empty,
Absence eviscerates me,
And I dwell in a cavernous, constant
--------Horror vacui.

A Grace

God, I know nothing, my sense is all nonsense,
And fear of You begins intelligence:
Does it end there? For sexual love, for food,
For books and birch trees I claim gratitude,
But when I grieve over the unripe dead
My grief festers, corrupted into dread,
And I know nothing. Give us our daily bread.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Donald Hall: first 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.

Maurice Manning

Maurice Manning is a Kentucky poet who seeks to capture something of the lost Kentucky of his childhood — especially the backwoods characters he remembers. His first poetry collection, Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions, was selected by W.S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.

Manning characteristically writes persona poems. His third collection Bucolics (2007) is completely formed from the rambling prayers of a rustic Kentuckian who only refers to God as “Boss”. Because these poems, and those in his new collection The Common Man (2010), are not in Manning’s own voice, it’s harder to ascertain the poet’s own spiritual attitudes. I attended a reading, at the Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan this April; and I was present when L.S. Klatt interviewed him. Maurice Manning talked readily about prayer, and his strong, constant sense of God’s presence.

The following poem is from his latest collection, for which he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

A Blasphemy

You wouldn't have believed it, how
the man, a little touched perhaps,

set his hands together and prayed
for happiness, yet not his own;

he meant his people, by which he meant
not people really, but trees and cows,

the dirty horses, dogs, the fox
who lived at the back of his place with her kits,

and the very night who settled down
to rock his place to sleep, the place

he tried so hard to tend he found
he mended fences in his sleep.

He said to the you above, who, let's
be honest, doesn't say too much,

I need you now up there to give
my people happiness, you let

them smile and know the reason; hear
my prayer, Old Yam. The you who's you

might laugh at that, and I agree,
it's funny to make a prayer like that,

the down-home words and yonder reach
of what he said; and calling God

the Elder Sweet Potato, shucks,
that's pretty funny, and kind of sad.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Maurice Manning: 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