Ida Gerhardt

Ida Gerhardt (1905—1997) is a Dutch poet, and a professor of Greek and Latin. Early on, she was influenced by the poet J.H. Leopold, who was her Classics teacher. In May of 1940 her debut poetry collection, Kosmos, was published. Much of her work is nature poetry, which arises from her Christian belief that there is a unity in all creation and it is the poet's sacred duty to uncover this.

The following poem was translated by John Irons, who says, "The poem describes the effect of the carillon coming from the steeple of a church, which is playing an old hymn included in the Valerius Gedenck-Clanck of 1626: [O Lord, who stretches out the heavens like a tent — Isaiah 40:22]...It is an appeal to God in time of need — highly appropriate in the context of the poem."

The Carillon

The people in the streets looked stricken,
their ashen faces drawn and tight, —
then something made their features quicken
and, listening, they seemed brushed with light.

For in the clock-tower when, resounding,
the bronze-chimed hour had died away,
the carilloneur began his pounding
and everywhere was heard to play.

Valerius: — a solemn singing
with bass bell’s tolling undertone
and flickerings of lighter ringing:
‘We raise our eyes to Thy high throne.’

As one of all those nameless people
who by the house fronts came to stand,
I listened to the pealing steeple
that sang of my afflicted land.

This speechless gathering, beyond us
the city with Dutch light above —
I’ve never for what’s stolen from us
felt such a bitter, bitter love.

War year 1941

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.

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz (1798—1855) — Poland's great Romantic poet — was greatly influenced by Lord Byron, Goethe and other Europeans. Christian faith is significant to his character, however in his writing it is often intertwined with his romanticism (combining elements of folk tales, chivalry, and tragic love) and his Polish nationalism.

In 1829 the poet visited Rome, and focussed on his religious practice — writing very little. In 1831 he wrote the third part of his earlier poem "Dziady" ("Forefather's Eve"). In this section he "views Poland as fulfilling a messianic role among the nations of western Europe by its national embodiment of the Christian themes of self-sacrifice and eventual redemption." This erroneous belief can distract from aspects of true Christian faith in his writing.

The Master of Masters

There is a master who has made a song
And tuned alike the heartbeats of a throng;
Like strings all elements of earth he binds
And o'er them guides the thunder and the winds;
And, playing ever with unwearied hand,
Sings to a world that will not understand:

A master who has colored blue the sky,
---And painted on the background of the wave,
And hewn colossal forms on mountains high
---And molded them of metal in the cave:
But all the knowledge that the world has brought
Cannot explain the meaning of his thought.

There is a master with a tongue divine
---Who has revealed the power of God o'er man;
He has interpreted with voice and sign
---The record of his works since time began:
They called him God in days that went before;
Today they scorn him, worshiping no more.

O earthly artist! what are thy small deeds?
Thy feeble carvings and thy books and creeds?
Dost thou complain that some among the throng
Like not thy picture, and sing not thy song?
Then gaze upon the Master, and be proud,
Thou Son of God, rejected by the crowd!

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Adam Mickiewicz: second post.

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.

Mary Karr*

Mary Karr has just released her fifth poetry collection Tropic of Squalor from HarperCollins. This is her first book of poetry since Sinners Welcome (2006). Despite her passion for poetry, she is best known for her trilogy of memoirs, the most-recent of which is Lit (2009). She has also written The Art of Memoir (2015), a book about how to write memoirs. Karr is the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University, where she's taught for more than 25 years.

She is one of the poets celebrated in my anthology The Turning Aside: The Kingdom Poets Book of Contemporary Christian Poetry — (available here) and through Amazon.

The following poem first appeared in Commonweal, and is from Tropic of Squalor.

The Devil's Delusion

I lie on my back in the lawnchair to study
the trees claw up toward heaven.
They have all the sap I lack.
It’s doubt I send rivering cloudways
in great boiling torrents, as if all creation
were a bad stage set I could wave
-----------------------------------------------way away,
then I could cast my dark spells in a blink
and a flaming fingersnap—and
a universe de Mare pops up
so I win the everlasting argument against all
that was or will or tiredly is.
As if my soul would not in that blink
be obliterate. As if, as kids say.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Mary Karr: first post

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.

Langston Hughes*

Langston Hughes (1902—1967) is the leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Throughout his life he struggled with the attraction he felt for Christian faith and the beauty it poured into black American culture, in contrast with the uses religion is so often put to that have nothing to do with God.

His written output includes novels, plays, short fiction, non-fiction and especially poetry. He felt it important to write for children, such as in his poetry collection The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932), about the culture of Black America, and about Christian faith. Hughes "gospel-singing play" Tambourines To Glory premiered on Broadway in 1963. The play was controversial in that it also took on issues of hypocrisy within the Black church.

In the following poem, Langston Hughes uses a black persona, perhaps as a way of expressing his own deep desires without identifying them as his own.

Moan

I'm deep in trouble,
Nobody to understand,
---Lord, Lord!

Deep in trouble,
Nobody to understand,
---O, Lord!

Gonna pray to ma Jesus,
Ask him to gimme His hand.
---Ma Lord!

I'm moanin', moanin',
Nobody cares just why.
---No, Lord!

Moanin', moanin',
Feels like I could die.
---O, Lord!

Sho, there must be peace,
Ma Jesus,
Somewhere in yo' sky.
---Yes Lord!

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Langston Hughes: first post

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.

Amy Clampitt

Amy Clampitt (1920—1994) is a poet whose attention to the particularities of our world could not help but bring her into reflections of God. She was born in Iowa to parents who were Quakers. She wrestled with faith and doubt all her life, being distrustful of organized religion. In the 1970s she became an "intense" Episcopalian, and — according to her friend, the poet, Mary Jo Bang — eventually came to "some sort of private peace with her enduring inconsistencies." She was always pleased hearing God's works praised, and right from the start was deeply influenced by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Clampitt lived most of her life in New York City. She worked as a secretary for Oxford University Press, and as a reference librarian at the Audubon Society. She began writing poetry when she was in her forties, and it wasn't until 1978 that her first poem appeared.

The following is from her first book of poems, The Kingfisher (1983).

The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews

An ingenuity too astonishing
to be quite fortuitous is
this bog full of sundews, sphagnum-
lined and shaped like a teacup.
----------------------------------------A step.
Down and you’re into it; a
Wilderness swallows you up:
ankle-, then knee-, then midriff-
to-shoulder-deep in wetfooted
understory, an overhead
spruce-tamarack horizon hinting
you’ll never get out of here.
----------------------------------------But the sun
among the sundews, down there,
is so bright, an underfoot
webwork of carnivorous rubies,
a star-swarm thick as the gnats
they’re set to catch, delectable
double-faced cockleburs, each
hair-tip a sticky mirror
afire with sunlight, a million
of them and again a million,
each mirror a trap set to
unhand unbelieving,
----------------------------------------that either
a First Cause said once, “Let there
be sundews,” and there were, or they’ve
made their way here unaided
other than by that backhand, round-
about refusal to assume responsibility
known as Natural Selection.
----------------------------------------But the sun
underfoot is so dazzling
down there among the sundews,
there is so much light
in the cup that, looking,
you start to fall upward.

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.