Luci Shaw*

Luci Shaw is the author of ten previous books of poetry. She was selected to be the 2013 recipient of the Denise Levertov Award; the award is given annually "to an artist or creative writer whose work exemplifies a serious and sustained engagement with the Judeo-Christian tradition." Luci Shaw's poetry so obviously does this. Since 1988 she has been the Writer in Residence at Regent College in Vancouver. She has also been poetry editor for both Crux (a Regent journal) and Radix (of Berkeley, California) for many years.

Robert Cording has said in praise of her new collection, Scape: "As Luci Shaw knows, in the 'many dimensions' of the world we move through, the radiance we receive as a gift is balanced against the cost of mortality and loss. Her poems have a Buddhist acceptance of the conditions of life and a Christian faith in the 'dislodgings,' 'realignments' and 'reintegrations' that are part of the self’s being made perpetually new, even as we age..."

This post is to celebrate the publication of her newest volume of poetry, Scape. I am pleased to say that it is one of the latest books in the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books, of which I am the editor. It was a pleasure to work with Luci on this collection. The following poem is from Scape.

Sparrow

This undistinguished, indistinguishable bird--
this prototype of insignificance—
this very moment’s sparrow at
our porch feeder—makes of her compactness
a virtue. From between the wires
she pecks the black sunflower seeds, neat head bobbing,
purposeful, economical, precise.
Watchful—peck and peek, peck and check.

I have seen scarlet tanagers, purple finches,
grosbeaks, red-footed gulls, even the arrogant
displays of peacocks. In her anonymity,
this diminutive bird is who she is, her suit
brown-grey as damp dust, eyes bright as beads.
This simple-ness, this pure unselfconsciousness,
this understated…this….Oh, the adjectives multiply,
but they are too large for this small one,
who humbles my own mud-brown heart.

She poises her nimble self to flick away, quick
as scissors—at a cat, a squirrel,
my movement at the glass door.

I tilt my head for a better angle, and she’s gone,
to the safety of the cedars.

Sometimes in my timidity I overcompensate
and try to sound large until I know
such falsehood betrays him who humbled himself,
who values a sparrow.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Luci Shaw: first post; second post; fourth 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.

A.J.M. Smith

A.J.M. Smith (1902—1980) is a Canadian poet whose first collection News of the Phoenix (1943) won the Governor General's Award for poetry. For more than 35 years he taught at what is now Michigan State University, and spent his summers in Quebec's Eastern Townships.

When he was still a grad student, in Montreal in 1925, together with F.R. Scott he founded and edited the McGill Fortnightly Review — the first Canadian periodical to publish modernist poetry. His PhD thesis was on "the Metaphysical Poets of the Anglican Church in the 17th Century". In 1936, along with Scott, and Leo Kennedy, he edited the anthology New Provinces — which was also significant in the promotion of modernist poetry in Canada.

Beside One Dead

This is the sheath,
---the sword drawn,
These are the lips,
---the word spoken.
This is Calvary
---toward dawn;
And this is the
---third-day token —
The opened tomb
---and the Lord gone:
Something whole
---that was broken.

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

Paul Willis*

Paul Willis is a writer of fiction, essays and poetry, who has just had his third poetry collection, Say This Prayer Into The Past (Cascade Books), appear. He has taught as a professor of English at Westmount College, in Santa Barbara, California since 1988. He has also recently completed his two-year term as Santa Barbara's Poet Laureate.

His poems and essays have been selected for such influential anthologies as: The Best American Poetry 1996 (Scribner's), The Best Spiritual Writing 1999 (Harper, San Francisco), The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004 (Houghton Mifflin), and The Best Christian Writing 2006 (Jossey Bass). It is my pleasure to have worked with Paul as the editor for his new collection, Say This Prayer Into The Past, which is part of the Poiema Poetry Series.

He and his family lost their home, including his library, in November 2008 to the Montecito Tea Fire that swept through Montecito and Santa Barbara — destroying 210 homes. I suspect the following poem, which appears in his new book, was written with that experience in mind.

Burn Victims

The oak trees by the creek are sweating blood.
There where the fire passed through, pressed by the wind,
their barks are blackened, and oozing through the singe,
red beads of sap drip sorrowingly down
to ashes. If we knew Gethsemane
were not a garden anymore and wept
itself, the knotty foreheads of each burl
contracted in one brow of woe, our prayer
would not be for life’s cup but merely that
our hearts might burn within us. Seared and scarred,
we’d bleed in hope of olives buried deep
among the roots, where what remains may rise.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Paul Willis: first post, third post, fourth post.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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

Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc (1870—1953) is a writer of light verse who, although he was born in France and served briefly in the French military, spent his life in Britain. His family moved to England when he was just two years old, he attended Balliol College in Oxford, and by 1906 was elected to the British House of Commons.

He was a prolific writer of fiction, history, biography, and religion, but is best known today for his poetry. Although he wrote humorous rhymes, there was often a seriousness to be found within, such as in the following brief poem.

A Trinity

Of three in One and One in three
My narrow mind would doubting be
Till Beauty, Grace and Kindness met
And all at once were Juliet.

Belloc is author of two books of poetry, Verses and Sonnets, and A Bad Child's Book of Beasts, both published in 1896 — the latter of which satirized moralistic poetry for children. He was a very devout Catholic and influenced his good friend G.K. Chesterton to convert.

Courtesy

Of Courtesy, it is much less
Than Courage of Heart or Holiness,
Yet in my Walks it seems to me
That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.

On Monks I did in Storrington fall,
They took me straight into their Hall;
I saw Three Pictures on a wall,
And Courtesy was in them all.

The first the Annunciation;
The second the Visitation;
The third the Consolation,
Of God that was Our Lady's Son.

The first was of St. Gabriel;
On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell;
And as he went upon one knee
He shone with Heavenly Courtesy.

Our Lady out of Nazareth rode —
It was Her month of heavy load;
Yet was her face both great and kind,
For Courtesy was in Her Mind.

The third it was our Little Lord,
Whom all the Kings in arms adored;
He was so small you could not see
His large intent of Courtesy.

Our Lord, that was Our Lady's Son,
Go bless you, People, one by one;
My Rhyme is written, my work is done.

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

Susanna Childress

Susanna Childress lives in Michigan, where she is on the faculty of Hope College. She is the author of two books: Jagged With Love (Wisconsin) which won the Britttingham Prize, and Entering the House of Awe (New Issues Press) which won the prize in poetry from the Society of Midland Authors.

Billy Collins praised her first book by saying, "Susanna Childress writes at the cutting edge of the long tradition of love poetry. Her poems often involve tense negotiations between a sharp cultural intelligence and a body that craves fulfillment..." Her poems dwell, often without rational connections, in the spaces where emotion is what really makes sense. They deal with yearning, pain, anxiety and joy, in a way that doesn't try to explain what can only be experienced."

Over the past seven years, Susanna's husband, Joshua Banner, has been setting some of her poems to music. The result is The Necessary Dark. The CD will be released in November, 2013, although videos can now be seen on her web site.

The following poem is from Entering the House of Awe.

From The Hyssop Tub------VI

Mary---Mary Countess---of Pembroke sister of the Queen's fallen
---------one---you
proffered this translation---this paraphrase---lines that perhaps
as you had---Laura---speak through---------Petrarch------you give this
---------woman
something---of her own------(the male Black-Throated Green Warbler
has been known to sing---466 songs---in one hour---to call a mate) for
it is not---let the bones you have crushed---rejoice but---that bruised
---------bones---may
dance away---their sadness---It is after all---to lepers God has been
assigned------------their purging---part cedar wood---part crimson
---------yarn---pair
of doves---------------hyssop------------Rabbinic commentary offers You
---------were proud
like the cedar and the Holy One---Blessed be He---humbled you
like---------this hyssop that---is crushed---by everyone------At the
---------crucifixion
I lifted------------a sponge of vinegared wine on a branch of
---------hyssop---------So
who's up for being ground---like mint or white sage------What's---the
---------chance
you take---------to give------------only and not---only------then---we
---------dance

Posted with permission of the poet.

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

R.S. Thomas*

R.S. Thomas (1913—2000) was born in Cardiff in Wales and studied classics, and then theology. For most of his life he served in rural parishes as an Anglican priest. His first book, The Stones of the Field, appeared in 1946. John Betjeman wrote a glowing introduction for his fourth collection, Song at the Year's Turning; it was brought out by a major publisher in 1955, and initiated the growth in Thomas's reputation. In 1964 he won the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry.

According to Colin Meir (British Poetry since 1970: A Critical Survey), R.S. Thomas believes that "one of the important functions of poetry is to embody religious truth, and since for him as poet that truth is not easily won, his poems record the struggle with marked honesty and integrity, thereby providing the context for the necessarily infrequent moments of faith and vision which are expressed with a clarity and gravity rarely matched by any of his contemporaries."

The Chapel

A little aside from the main road,
becalmed in a last-century greyness,
there is the chapel, ugly, without the appeal
to the tourist to stop his car
and visit it. The traffic goes by,
and the river goes by, and quick shadows
of clouds, too, and the chapel settles
a little deeper into the grass.

But here once on an evening like this,
in the darkness that was about
his hearers, a preacher caught fire
and burned steadily before them
with a strange light, so that they saw
the splendour of the barren mountains
about them and sang their amens
fiercely, narrow but saved
in a way that men are not now.

Kneeling

Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great role. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
---------------------Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about R.S. Thomas: first post, third post, fourth 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

Robert Cording*

Robert Cording is a Connecticut poet who has now published seven poetry books. Since he was previously featured at Kingdom Poets, he has published two further poetry collections. The first is Walking With Ruskin (2011, CavanKerry Press) and his new collection is A Word In My Mouth – the newest book in the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books.

The poet Baron Wormser has celebrated Cording’s poetic achievement by saying , “The wonder of Cording’s work is how off-hand it seems...The humility at work here is genuine yet the dark questions about our time on earth remains...To look human failing in the eyes and not blink is an achievement, to join praise in the same breath is very special.”

I am honoured to have been able to assist as editor for Robert Cording’s new collection. A Word In My Mouth primarily consists of poems selected from his six earlier books, particularly focusing on his spiritual musings.

Last Things

I am always thinking about death—
my own mostly, but this morning

Augustine’s, he who asked to be left alone
at the end, his only company

the six large-lettered penitential psalms
he tacked to his cell walls, a map

even a saint needs, I guess, on the journey
toward death the self keeps trying

to prepare itself for. So often I have prayed,
Teach me the way I should go, and O Lord,

heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror,
as if, in the repetition of those words,

each larval stage of my life might be let go.
But just as often I have been distracted

by dust on the windowsill dimpling with rain
or the yellow shine of afternoon sun

on the grass, by the rush and babble
of voices talking all at once in the next room,

or even a dog’s barking—as Augustine
may have been, looking up now and again

from his prayer, arrested by an ordinary cloud
passing across the face of the sun

and the new shadows pooling on the floor,
the next thing still happening, still arriving

and being replaced, still restless, all of it
part of a world so hard to finish loving.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Robert Cording: first post

Posted with permission of the poet.

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