Luann Hiebert

Luann Hiebert is a Manitoba poet, who serves as Assistant Professor of English Literature at Providence University College, and is an adjunct faculty member at Steinbach Bible College. Her first full-length poetry collection is What Lies Behind (2014, Turnstone Press). It was shortlisted for two Manitoba book awards: the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, and the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry.

I met her this past October at the Faith in Form Conference in Winnipeg, where we were among the literary presenters, including Sarah Klassen, Sally Ito, Angeline Schellenberg, and Joanne Epp.

a stone’s throw away
(John 8:3-11)

she was familiar
with the pattern

----------he cheated her
----------she cheated him
----------they cheated love

caught
----------women were stoned
----------for such affairs (not
men) the Law

threw her down
----------at the teacher’s feet
demanded condemnation

justice
(un) just
----------a stone’s throw away
----------her death sentence

the teacher drew lines
in the sand drew in the stone
cold crowd

___m_ e_ r_ c_ y___
threw the Law
off guard caught her
by surprise
----------___l_o_v_e__
--------------------threw away
-----------------------------------the stones

Posted with permission of the poet.

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.

Marianne Bluger

Marianne Bluger (1945―2005) is a Canadian poet who authored eleven collections, including The Eternities (2005, St. Thomas Poetry Series). Her father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and her first husband a Zen master. She was influenced by both, and passionate about her own Anglican, Christian faith.

She studied under Louis Dudek at McGill University, and maintained a friendship with him throughout their lives. She received the Archibald Lampman Award in 1993, for her collection Summer Grass (Brick Books).

Her obituary says, “Bluger co-founded Christians Against Apartheid. She worked for many years with great dedication both in secret and openly to help bring down the evil regime of Apartheid in South Africa. The church network that was able to do so much to topple the oppressors, and the example of the church women of South Africa who suffered so much, taught her the most important lesson of her life: that Christ will never fail the one who loves and trusts Him.”

She administered the Canadian Writers’ Foundation for twenty five years, assisting noteworthy Canadian writers with financial needs. She also co-founded the Tabitha Foundation to assist those in Cambodia.

The Choirmaster

After the practice
when the choir is gone
in the stilly twilit
stained glass gloom

at the windy organ
in the country church
an old dame with arthritic hands
plays on and on…

a fugue of Bach
its rounded sounds
in perfect tune
fused line on line
pour forth and there
throbbing in the hallowed air
hangs the whole blessed empyrean

her pure heart’s gift to the Holy One

This poem appeared in the Margo Swiss anthology Poetry As Liturgy (St. Thomas Poetry Series).

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.

Edmund Spenser*

Edmund Spenser (1552―1599) is considered one of the greatest English poets, for having glorified both England and its language through his epic The Faerie Queene. In the poem ― one of the longest in the English language ― he writes of knights, as a way of speaking allegorically of different virtues, reminiscent of “the armour of God” as described in Ephesians 6.

He was a highly original poet, who absorbed and re-envisioned the influences of ancient poets, such as Virgil, and Petrarch, and of his Italian contemporary Torquato Tasso. Ancient sources contributed to his understanding of structure, and to his vision ― taking the ideas of early philosophies, and pagan mythology, and weaving in his own experience of Christian faith.

from An Hymne of Heavenly Love

With all thy hart, with all thy soule and mind,
Thou must him love, and his beheasts embrace;
All other loves, with which the world doth blind
Weake fancies, and stirre up affections base,
Thou must renounce and utterly displace,
And give thy selfe unto him full and free,
That full and freely gave himselfe to thee.

Then shalt thou feele thy spirit so possest,
And ravisht with devouring great desire
Of his deare selfe, that shall thy feeble brest
Inflame with love, and set thee all on fire
With burning zeale, through every part entire,
That in no earthly thing thou shalt delight,
But in his sweet and amiable sight.

Thenceforth all worlds desire will in thee dye,
And all earthes glorie, on which men do gaze,
Seeme durt and drosse in thy pure-sighted eye,
Compared to that celestiall beauties blaze,
Whose glorious beames all fleshly sense doth daze
With admiration of their passing light,
Blinding the eyes, and lumining the spright.

Then shall thy ravisht soule inspired bee
With heavenly thoughts farre above humane skil,
And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainely see
The idee of his pure glorie present still
Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill
With sweet enragement of celestiall love,
Kindled through sight of those faire things above.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Edmund Spenser: 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.

Scott Cairns*

Scott Cairns is the author of nine poetry collections ― the most recent include Anaphora (2019), Slow Pilgrim: The Collected Poems (2015), and Idiot Psalms (2014) which were all published by Paraclete Press. In 2007 his spiritual memoir Short Trip to the Edge (Harper San Francisco) first appeared; Greek and Romanian editions have since been published, as well as an expanded English edition. He is now the Director of the Seattle Pacific University Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing.

In a recent interview with Saint Katherine Review, Scott Cairns said, “[I]n order to see anything, you have to really look. You have to pour over the words. You have to pour over the landscape. You have to ‘attend’, as we’re often invited to do during the liturgy. So in my own vocation as a poet, I have to be a lover of language and a truster of language that through the Holy Spirit it will lead me into seeing something I hadn’t anticipated. A vocation is not so much something we’re called to do to serve God. We’re called into a vocation, and in that vocation, if we pursue it with due diligence, that’s where the Lord blesses us further. So it’s not something we do for him so much as it is what he gives us to do that’s worthwhile.”

The following poem is from his new collection, Anaphora.

Sin En Route to Lent

Beneath his breath
the zealot says
thank God I am
not like this man,
the Pharisee
who thought to scorn
the publican.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Scott Cairns: first post, second post, fourth 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.