Petrarch

Petrarch (Fransesco Petrarca) (1304–1374) is an Italian poet who has significantly influenced western verse. His sonnets were particularly admired. The form — known today as the Petrarchan sonnet — begins with an octave (ABBAABBA) followed by a sestet (often in the pattern CDECDE). This form is easier to accomplish in Italian than English, which is perhaps why the translation below doesn’t seek to perfectly echo it. He grew up in southeastern France, after his parents were banished from Florence. In 1341 he was crowned poet laureate in Rome.

For 21 years — right up to her premature death — Petrarch maintained an obsession for a beautiful woman, named Laura, who was unobtainable for him because she was already married. In The Canzoniere, are collected the poems expressing his love for her, and his sorrow after her death.

He is called the father of humanism; he believed Christian faith was not incompatible with realizing humanity’s potential. He was devoted to Christ, and sought to demonstrate the closeness of Christianity to major philosophic thought.

62

Father in heaven, after each lost day,
Each night spent raving with that fierce desire
Which in my heart has kindled fire
Seeing your acts adorned for my dismay;
Grant henceforth that I turn, within your light
To another life and deeds more truly fair,
So having spread to no avail the snare
My bitter foe might hold it in despite.
The eleventh year, my Lord, has now come round
Since I was yoked beneath the heavy trace
That on the meekest weights most cruelly,
Pity the abject plight where I am found;
Return my straying thoughts to a nobler place;
Show them this day you were on Calvary.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Petrarch: 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

Nicholas Samaras

Nicholas Samaras is the 1991 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for his debut collection Hands of the Saddlemaker. In the forward to that book, James Dickey calls him “an early master of strange, honest and astonishing metaphor...”

Samaras is the son of a prominent Greek Orthodox theologian, Bishop Kallistos Samaras. He has a dual European—American heritage, and has spent much time on both continents — including having lived on the Greek isle of Patmos where John the Revelator (that is John the Apostle) received his vision. He has said, “A part of what I do is theological. God lives in the point of my pen. In writing, I interact with the act of creativity, the act of creation.” His poems have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Poetry and Image. He has recently completed a collection of 150 poems inspired by the Psalms.

Easter in the Cancer Ward

Because it has been years since my hands
have dyed an egg or I’ve remembered
my father with color in his beard,
because my fingers have forgotten
the feel of wax melting on my skin,
the heat of paraffin warping air,
because I prefer to view death politely from afar,
I agree to visit the children’s cancer ward.

In her ballet-like butterfly slippers, Elaine pad-pads
down the carpeted hall. I bring the bright bags,
press down packets of powdered dye, repress my slight unease.
She sweeps her hair from her volunteer’s badge, leaves
behind her own residents’ ward for a few hours’ release.
The new wing’s doors glide open onto great light. Everything is
vibrant and clattered with color. Racing
up, children converge, their green voices rising.

What does one do with the embarrassment of staring
at sickness? Suddenly, I don’t know where to place
my hands. Children with radiant faces
reach out thinly, clamor for the expected bags, lead
us to the Nurses’ kitchen. Elaine introduces me and reads
out a litany of names. Some of the youngest wear
old expressions. The bald little boy loves Elaine’s long mane of hair
and holds the healthy thickness to his face, hearing

her laugh as she pulls him close. “I’m dying,”
he says, and Elaine tells him she is, too: too
much iron silting her veins. I can never accept that truth
yet, in five months, she’ll slip away in a September
night – leaving her parents and me to bow our heads, bury her
in a white wedding gown, our people’s custom.
But right now, I don’t know this. Right now, we are young,
still immortal, and the kids fidget, crying

out for their eggs. Elaine divides them into teams;
I lay out the tools for the operation.
I tell them all how painting Easter eggs used to be done
in the Old Country. Before easy dyes were common,
villagers boiled onion peels, ladled eggs
into pots so the shells wouldn’t break.
They’d scoop them out, flushed a brownish-
red, and the elders would polish and polish

them with olive oil, singing hymns for the Holy Thursday hours.
The children laugh and boo when I try to sing. The boys swirl
speckles of color into hot water, while the girls
time the eggs. When a white-faced boy asks from nowhere
if I believe in Christ and living forever,
I stop stirring the mix, answer,”Yes, I do.” I answer slowly
and when I speak, my own voice deafens me.
The simple truth blooms like these painted flowers

riding up the bright kitchen walls. I come
to belief. I know that much. Still, what a man may
do with belief demands more than what he says.
Now, the hot waters are a stained, rich red. The eggs have
boiled and cooled. To each set of hands, Elaine gives
one towel, three eggs. I pass the pot of melted paraffin,
show these children how to take the eggs and dip them in
and out. While the wax hardens to an opaque film, we hum

Christos Aneste and the room bustles, ajabber
with speech. Holding pins firmly, we scratch out mad
designs where the color will fill. Small, flurried hands
etch and scrim the shells. Everyone’s fingers whorl
and scratch in names, delicate and final.
Edging the hall’s threshold, an April’s allow-
ance of sun filters through tinted windows. Faces furrow
in solemn concentration. Looking to Elaine, my thoughts clamor

for what is redemptive in illness, for having
a Credo to hold these people to me. Etchings
done, everyone immerses the waxy eggs in the pooled
dye. We ooh together when transfigured eggs are spooned
out, wiped and dried on the counters. Soft wax
is peeled gingerly, flecked away; more oohs for the tracks
of limned lines, testimonial names.
We burnish the shells with olive oil for a fine sheen

For a moment, the cultivated, finished eggs hush
the room. Then, every child goes wild in a rush
to compare, they show the nurses, each
other. The bald boy taps my waist, Lined up and speech-
less, they present me with a bright, autographed
egg, communally done. Elaine makes me close my eyes and laughs
when small limbs push at my back to follow
her. They shove my hand in the cool, wet, red dye. The hollow-

eyed girl squeals till tears streak from her laughing.
Another child cries, “You’ll never get it off!”
And today, I don’t want to. Today,
we’ve painted eggs a lively color, not caring
about the body’s cells and the cells’ incarceration.
I lift my arms to embrace Elaine and dab her nose and chin.
And my hands are vivid red. My hands
are bloody with resurrection.

and we are laughing.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Nicholas Samaras: 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

Richard Greene

Richard Greene has recently gained significant acclaim as the 2010 winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, for his third collection, Boxing the Compass (Signal Editions). Greene is originally from Newfoundland — something often revealed in his verse. He currently teaches at the University of Toronto, and lives in Cobourg, Ontario.

In a recent interview in The Toronto Quarterly he spoke of "a despair in modern poetry". He said, "I think the valid emotions of poetry require severe testing. In that I am influenced by R.S. Thomas and Geoffrey Hill. Bear in mind that as a religious poet, I am automatically thought by some readers to be sentimental...” He continued to say, Poetry “should not just evoke or report feelings, it should also test them with certain ironies.”

He has written biographies of the novelist Graham Greene, and the poet Dame Edith Sitwell.

The following poem is from his 2004 collection, Crossing the Straits (St. Thomas Poetry Series).

Occupation: Pilate Speaks

Execution hangs in the air
like a figure of Roman rhetoric,
every obscure point personified
and made plain, an allegory played out
in simple sentences and understood.
We are an occupying power, one kingdom
in the midst of another, compelling
loyalty where the heart is beaten down
and all things lie under the exaction of fear.
My task is to quell their riots,
to keep the peace of our advantages.

In this man is the fiction of kingship:
he requires or enacts no policy,
and recruits to his cause no persons
unworthy of nails. I wish to parley
for his innocence, for the due process
of irony ends in freedom or death,
and I would not depose his heaven,
his kingship that is not of this world.
Yet his small elevation, this mound
at Gabbatha, occupied at Caesar’s
pleasure, permits no gentle discourse.
A voice may carry, and there is no King
but Caesar. You know to whom you speak.

I hand him over to bloody converse
of the whip, those lacerating words
inscribing an empire in his flesh,
such rituals of his coronation
as will befit an ambiguous reign.
My regret will have its other meanings,
possible worlds invading our sleep
with all unchosen things, holy jests
as may stay for an answer I cannot give.

I send him from the mind’s place into streets
loud with voices of the world’s no meaning;
I linger in this moment’s constant death
to barb in three tongues my tribute to his reign.

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

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick (1591―1674) is the author of Hesperides (1648), a collection of more than 1200 short poems ranging in theme from English country life, to love, to Christian faith. He never married, and it is believed that many of the women mentioned in his poems were fictitious. He was part of the group known as the “Sons of Ben” who greatly admired the work of Ben Jonson. Herrick almost seems to be two poets – one secular and one sacred. The tension between these two sides can be seen in “His Prayer For Absolution” (below).

In 1621 Herrick became vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire. He maintained this post for a total of 31 years, although he was temporarily removed from this position because of his royalist leanings during the Civil War; he regained his place after Charles II was restored to the throne.

To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
----Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
----Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
----The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
----And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
----When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
----Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
----And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
----You may forever tarry.

His Prayer For Absolution

For those my unbaptized rhymes,
Writ in my wild unhallowed times,
For every sentence, clause, and word,
That's not inlaid with thee, my Lord,
Forgive me, God, and blot each line
Out of my book, that is not Thine.
But if, 'mongst all, thou find'st here one
Worthy thy benediction,
That one of all the rest shall be
The glory of my work, and me.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Robert Herrick: 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

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is one of the most popular of all contemporary American poets. She is known and loved for her accessible style, her positive outlook, and her portrayals of nature. When she was 17, she made a pilgrimage to visit the home of the deceased poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. She became friends with the poet's sister, Norma, and virtually lived on the 800 acre property with her for the next six years. She published her first collection of poetry when she was 28, but didn't receive much attention until her fifth collection, American Primitive (1983), won the Pulitzer Prize.

She disliked public attention — rarely granting interviews or making appearances. Even so, her poetry continued to gain notice, such as when her 1992 collection won the National Book Award. Her troubled childhood probably contributed to this desire for isolation. In a recent rare interview she expressed that she was sexually abused as a child, and feels damaged as a result. She also said in the same interview, “I try to praise. If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the earth is meant to look like.”

Although she is reluctant to identify herself too closely with organized religion, the faith she has expressed in such recent books as Thirst (2006), Red Bird (2008) and Evidence (2009), reveals a spirituality grounded not only in the natural world, but also in Christ. The Booklist review of Thirst says, “Spirituality has always been an element in Oliver's work, but as she writes of her grief after losing her longtime companion [Molly Malone Cook], her poems gradually become overtly Christian.” This is evident in such poems as “Coming to God: First Days”, “The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist” and “Six Recognitions of the Lord”. All from that book.

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Spring

Faith
is the instructor.
We need no other.

Guess what I am,
he says in his
incomparably lovely

young-man voice.
Because I love the world
I think of grass,

I think of leaves
and the bold sun,
I think of the rushes

in the black marshes
just coming back
from under the pure white

and now finally melting
stubs of snow.
Whatever we know or don’t know

leads us to say;
Teacher, what do you mean?
But faith is still there, and silent.

Then he who owns
the incomparable voice
suddenly flows upward

and out of the room
and I follow,
obedient and happy.

Of course I am thinking
the Lord was once young
and will never in fact be old.

And who else could this be, who goes off
down the green path,
carrying his sandals, and singing?

Read my Ruminate review of Mary Oliver's poetry collection
Red Bird here, and my review for The Cresset of her boook Evidence, here.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Mary Oliver: second 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

Columba of Iona

Columba of Iona (521—597) was a Celtic monk from Ireland who founded a number of monasteries including one on the Scottish island of Iona. He is credited with leading the Picts of northern Scotland to Christ, and establishing a missionary school which further contributed to the spread of the gospel. Columba — the name he’s best known by — means dove; the Irish called him Columcille, which means dove of the church.

In 540, his master Finnian brought the first copy of Jerome’s Vulgate to Ireland. The young Columba surreptitiously in the night made a copy of the Psalter for himself. The Irish king, Diarmaid, made the following copyright ruling: "To every cow her calf, and to every book its son-book. Therefore the copy you made, O Colum Cille, belongs to Finnian."

Details of his life come to us from Adomnan — who was Abbott of Iona, and wrote almost a century after Columba’s death — and later from Bede. Their writings were based on the oral traditions of the monastery, and earlier writings which have not survived.

Columcille's Poem

Delightful to me to be on an island hill, on the crest of a rock,
that I might often watch the quiet sea;

That I might watch the heavy waves above the bright water,
as they chant music to their Father everlastingly.

That I might watch its smooth, bright-bordered shore, no gloomy
--------pastime,
that I might hear the cry of the strange birds, a pleasing sound;

That I might hear the murmur of the long waves against the rocks,
that I might hear the sound of the sea, like mourning beside a
--------grave;

That I might watch the splendid flocks of birds over the
--------well-watered sea,
that I might see its mighty whales, the greatest wonder.

That I might watch its ebb and flood in their course,
that my name should be — it is a secret that I tell — "he who
--------turned his back upon Ireland;"

That I might have a contrite heart as I watch,
that I might repent my many sins, hard to tell;

That I might bless the Lord who rules all things,
heaven with its splendid host, earth, ebb, and flood...

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

C.H. Sisson

C.H. Sisson (1914—2003) is a poet and translator, who also wrote novels and essays. He was not well-known until he reached his sixties. He disliked much of the popular poetry of his day, considering its attitudes towards the poor to be sentimental and inaccurate.

Although raised a Methodist, he became dedicated to his adopted Anglicanism. He early became passionate about the writings of 17th century Anglicans, including the poets John Donne, George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. He worked in the British civil service, including in the Ministry of Labour; he was outspoken in favour of traditional structures in both political and ecclesiastical government. He was a close friend with the poet, critic and anthologist Donald Davie.

In 1993 he received a Companion of Honour for his achievement as a poet.

The Media

1
The world is fabricated by
A gang of entertainers who
Have replaced God Almighty.

The universe, made in six days,
Is re-made every day by those
Who hear all that the newsman says,
For whom fact is replaced by gloze.

2
The air is full of noise,
The screen of caper:
Reality enjoys
No inch of paper.

The most expensive lies
Flourish in every home:
Great gulps of froth and foam
Win the first prize.

Go to the quiet wood
To hear the beating heart:
Leaf fall and breaking bud
Will play their part.

And so the truth is out
Which only quiet tells,
And as it does, its voice
Sounds like a peal of bells.

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