Hildegard of Bingen*

Hildegard of Bingen (1098—1179) was the youngest of ten children. Her parents dedicated her to God as a tithe, placing her under the anchoress Jutta as her servant and apprentice.

As a child she received visions of light she could not interpret. These visions persisted, reaching a pinnacle when she was 42 years old. She said: "A fiery light, flashing intensely, came from the open vault of heaven and poured through my whole brain. Like a flame that is hot without burning, it kindled all my heart and all my breast. … Suddenly I could understand."

Jutta and Hildegard had formed a Benedictine convent, which Hildegard moved to the Rhine River town of Bingen after Jutta’s death. She also established monasteries at Rupertsberg, and Eibingen as the community expanded.

Hildegard wrote of her visions, and her interpretations of those visions in books, and went on speaking tours throughout the Rhine region. Opposition came when she criticized church leaders for abuses of power; however, both Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugenius III supported her efforts. She also started writing music for her nuns to sing as part of the Divine Office.

She is primarily known today for her music and poetry, although she also wrote practical books on biology, botany, medicine, theology and the arts.

O Comforting Fire of Spirit

O comforting fire of Spirit,
Life, within the very Life of all Creation.
Holy you are in giving life to All.

Holy you are in anointing
those who are not whole;
Holy you are in cleansing
a festering wound.

O sacred breath,
O fire of love,
O sweetest taste in my breast
which fills my heart
with a fine aroma of virtues.

O most pure fountain
through whom it is known
that God has united strangers
and inquired after the lost.

O breastplate of life
and hope of uniting
all members as One,
O sword-belt of honor,
enfold those who offer blessing.

Care for those
who are imprisoned by the enemy
and dissolve the bonds of those
whom Divinity wishes to save.

O mightiest path which penetrates All,
from the height to every Earthly abyss,
you compose All, you unite All.

Through you clouds stream, ether flies,
stones gain moisture,
waters become streams,
and the earth exudes Life.

You always draw out knowledge,
bringing joy through Wisdom's inspiration.

Therefore, praise be to you
who are the sound of praise
and the greatest prize of Life,
who are hope and richest honor
bequeathing the reward of Light.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Hildegard of Bingen: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Nola Garrett

Nola Garrett is a Pittsburgh poet who taught literature and writing for many years at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Her books include a collection of sestinas The Dynamite Maker’s Mistress (2009), and The Pastor’s Wife Considers Pinball (2013). In this latter collection she has created the persona of the pastor’s wife, whom she imagines as seperate from herself, and yet in relationship with her. Mayapple Press released Garrett's Ledge: New & Selected Poems in 2016.

She is one of the poets whose work appears in Taking Root in the Heart (2023, Paraclete Press) ― a new anthology, of poets whose work has appeared in The Christian Century, edited by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner. Some of the other featured poets include Brett Foster, Julie L. Moore, Luci Shaw, and Anya Silver.

Nola Garrett has also translated Macedonian poetry, along with her daughter-in-law Natasha Garrett.

The Pastor’s Wife and I

The pastor’s wife does not go out to play.
Outside it is Tuesday—merciless and far
from Sunday. She is all righteous carrots
and earnest potatoes. Sometimes she hurts
me with her notions, makes my shoulders droop,
reminds me that Nola’s dreams are a troupe
of untrained monkeys. She recycles
my prayers, drags me away from dark angels.
But, when her hair grew prim and gray, I made
her dye it brown. Then, she chose our second husband,
a good man given to chills—him, I seduced.
Now, like a gun, she holds her watch
to my ear, forces me to write these poems.
It was I who fed her those wild greens,
a salad cut from the last of my pagan
garden’s rue. Her mouth burns
for benedictions and shooting stars.
Into my mirror she stares, worries
I might disappear—her feral woman—
the woman who met Christ at the well.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Abigail Carroll*

Abigail Carroll is a poet living in Vermont whose new collection is one written in conversation with the Psalms. Cup My Days Like Water (2023) like it’s predecessor Habitation of Wonder (2018) has been published by Cascade Books as part of the Poiema Poetry Series. I selected both of these books and worked with the poet as editor to ready them for publication.

Walter Brueggemann has said of her new book, “This rich poetic collection is overwhelming in its rich imagery, its simplicity of wording, and its unflinching witness to the reality and goodness of God. Abigail Carroll is fixed on the concreteness of life as she sees it, even as she makes winsome linkages to the specificities of Scripture. If you love poetry, get this book! If you do not yet love poetry, get this book and you will promptly learn to love poetry—along with the honest knowing faith of this poet.”

Carroll holds a PhD in American Studies from Boston University, where she has taught both history and writing. She is pastor of arts and spiritual formation at Church at the Well, in Burlington, Vermont. Her other passions include photographing nature, and playing the harp.

The following poem is from Cup My Days Like Water and relates to the following quotation from Psalm 10:1 — “O LORD, why do you stand so far away?”

Where is the Lord?

Always hiding—
a well deep in the earth,
a herring gull’s feather, white,
waiting to be picked up.
Where is the Lord?
Always riding
the space between
breath and branches, light-years
and stars—
the bright, slow rendering
of who we were into who
we at last are.

Where is the Lord?
Always in song
behind a curtain, behind
a wall,
behind a truth too tall to scale.
Yes, always behind a strong veil,
a fire screen,
a heat shield by which we’re spared
the brunt of a vast love—
scouring, wild.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Abigail Carroll: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Anne Southwell

Anne Southwell (c.1573–1636) was born in Devon, within the prominent British classes. Her father, Sir Thomas Harris, served as an MP. Her husband Thomas Southwell was nephew to the Jesuit poet Robert Southwell, though he and Anne were distinctly Protestant. She became known as Lady Anne Southwell when her husband was knighted by King James I.

For reasons that are unclear, Anne did not gain position in the new queen’s court. She and her husband moved to Poulnalong Castle in Ireland around 1603. Thomas died in 1626, and although Anne remarried (to Captain Henry Sibthorpe) she maintained her title.

Anne Southwell wrote both religious and secular poetry; her incomplete sequence of meditative poems on the Ten Commandments are one of her valuable contributions. Her body was buried at Acton Parish Church, where a memorial plaque honouring her is on display.

The following version of one of her poems has had its spelling and punctuation modernized by Horace Jeffery Hodges (with the exception of my keeping the original title), and is from his blog Gypsy Scholar.

All maried men desire to have good wifes

All married men desire to have good wives,
but few give good example by their lives.
They are our head; they would have us their heels.
This makes the good wife kick, the good man reels.
When God brought Eve to Adam for a bride,
the text says she was taken from out man's side,
a symbol of that side, whose sacred blood
flowed for his spouse, the church's saving good.
This is a mystery, perhaps too deep,
for blockish Adam that was fallen asleep.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Lisa Russ Spaar

Lisa Russ Spaar is an American poet, and a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. Her most-recent poetry collection is Madrigalia: New and Selected Poems (2021, Persea), which consists both of poems from her previous five books, and a generous display of 43 new “Madrigals” or sonnet-like poems. Her debut novel Paradise Close appeared in 2022.

She often writes interrelated poems. The journal Image says of her series of poems where she’s selected insomnia as a focus, [They] “offer a frank and nuanced picture of our laboring toward transcendence, our grief and longing over our distance from our maker, but also our love for the world with which we are so marvelously entangled.”

The following poem first appeared in Image, was awarded a 2016 Pushcart Prize, and is from her book Orexia (2017, Persea). The Latin epigraph ― from the Christmas carol Gaudete Christus est Natus ― appears in translation, italicized, within the poem itself.

Temple Gaudete

-----Deus homo factus est
-----Natura mirante.

Is love the start of a journey back?
If so, back where, & make it holy.

Saint Cerulean Warbler, blue blur,
heart on the lam, courses arterial branches,

combing up & down, embolic,
while inside I punch down & fold a floe

of dough to make it later rise.
On the box, medieval voices, polyphonic,

God has become man, to the wonderment
of Nature. Simple to say: there is gash,

then balm. Admit we love the abyss,
our mouths sipping it in one another.

At the feeder now. Back to the cherry, quick,
song’s burden, rejoice, rejoice.

O salve & knife. Too simple to say
we begin as mouths, angry swack,

lungs flooded with a blue foreseeing.
Story that can save us only through the body.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

H.F. Gould

H.F. Gould (1789―1865) is a Massachusetts poet whose father was among those who fought in the first battle of the American Revolution. While Hannah Flagg Gould was still a child, her mother died, and for many years she dedicated herself to keeping house for her father. Her first poetry collection, consisting primarily of poems that had appeared in magazines and annuals, was put together by her friends in 1832 without her knowledge. Her work became quite popular, which led to ten further collections eventually being published.

Although she never came close to his imaginative skill, Gould was much taken with the poetry of William Blake ― quoting Blake’s comment, "my business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes expressing God-like sentiments."

She wrote abolitionist poetry, nature poetry, children's poetry, and poems of faith ― some of which have become hymns.

A Name in the Sand

Alone I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand:
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name—the year—the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast;
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.

And so, methought, ’t will shortly be
With every mark on earth from me:
A wave of dark oblivion’s sea
Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been, to be no more,
Of me—my day—the name I bore,
To leave nor track nor trace.

And yet, with Him who counts the sands
And holds the waters in his hands,
I know a lasting record stands
Inscribed against my name,
Of all this mortal part has wrought,
Of all this thinking soul has thought,
And from these fleeting moments caught
For glory or for shame.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Michael Symmons Roberts*

Michael Symmons Roberts is a British poet, broadcaster, and librettist ― collaborating often with the Scottish classical composer James MacMillan. His most recent poetry collection is Ransom (2021, Jonathan Cape). Carol Ann Duffy has called him “The clearest and purest voice currently sounding in British poetry.”

The following poem is from Ransom, and is the fifteenth poem from the central section “Vingt Regards,” which he explains “was written in response to Olivier Messiaen’s set of twenty short piano pieces about the incarnation: Vingt Regards sur l‘Enfant-Jésus.” The poems were commissioned by pianist Cordelia Williams who was curating a series of Messiaen events around the UK back in 2015.

For these poems Michael Symmons Roberts reflects on the various contemplations of the Christ child, but also on life in German-occupied Paris during 1944 where Messianen was composing his Twenty Contemplations of the Infant Jesus, and simultaneously Marcel Carné was working on his cinematic masterpiece Les Enfant du Paradis. He has said, “the poems are an attempt to explore the same theological or mystical ground as the music ― the scandal and sheer risk of the incarnation, the liberating power of it.”

Rehearsal For The Death Scene

If trees could walk like men,
beautiful boy-god, I would bear you
on my shoulders through this city,
show you every boulevard and alley,
every market stall and park.

You would tower above
the cavalcades and rallies,
peer into penthouse suites and boardrooms
witness to so many acts of cruelty and love,
safe among my needles.

Then when you nod tired
in the cold and thickening dark
I would stand on the riverbank,
as long slow barges mutter by,
and sing you to sleep in my many tongues:

the bat-high silvered songs
of linden, plane; slow lullabies
of quince and medlar from the gardens;
long laments of empress, foxglove
in the windless squares.

I would carry you for years,
until you grow so heavy that they
nail you up to keep you here. It is needless,
because even if my back broke,
I would never let you fall.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Michael Symmons Roberts: first post, second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

F.R. Scott*

F.R. Scott (1899―1985) in some circles is best known as a constitutional lawyer and political theoretician; he served as Dean of Law at McGill University, and was a political activist for more than forty years ― helping to lay the foundations for what is now Canada’s New Democratic Party. He considered, however, his poetry to be his most important contribution.

His father was an Anglican priest, poet, and a strong supporter of social justice issues ― who was returned to Montreal by the army in 1919 for being publicly in favour of the Winnipeg General Strike. F.R. Scott’s sense of human worth and dignity ― despite the secular forces within leftist political movements ― remained grounded in his Christian faith.

Scott was an early champion of modernist poetry in Canada, establishing little magazines in the 1920s. In 1936, he and his friend A.J.M. Smith edited New Provinces, the first anthology of modern Canadian verse.

The Winter 1967 issue of the journal Canadian Literature was subtitled “A Salute to F.R. Scott” and featured an essay by A.J.M. Smith, who said of Scott’s Selected Poems (1966, Oxford University Press) “most of his poems that start out as an image soon become images, and perceptions soon become concepts and blossom in metaphor, analogy, and conceit. Mind comes flooding in.” Smith, like many others, used the word “metaphysical” to describe Scott’s verse, and demonstrates the power of his poems by letting them speak for themselves.

The following poem is from Scott’s 1945 collection Overture (Ryerson Press).

Resurrection

Christ in the darkness, dead,
His own disaster hid.
His hope for man, too soon
Sealed with the outer stone.

This heaven was at hand,
Men saw the promised land,
Yet swiftly, with a nail
Made fast the earlier rule.

All saviours ever to be
Share this dark tragedy;
The vision beyond reach
Becomes the grave of each.

And that of him which rose
Is our own power to choose
Forever, from defeat,
Kingdoms more splendid yet.

Play Easter to this grave
No Christ can ever leave.
It is one man has fallen,
It is ourselves have risen.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about F.R. Scott: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Sally Ito*

Sally Ito is a poet and writer who has four poetry collections, including her new book Heart’s Hydrography (2022, Turnstone). She is an adjunct Professor of English at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

Rowan Williams (the former Archbishop of Canterbury) has written about this collection, “Winter landscapes, water landscapes, the landscapes of family love and frustration, and of the soul’s seasons―all these are mapped by Sally Ito with deep compassion and rich tactile imagery. Everyday perceptions made radiant.”

Sally has recently teamed up with Sarah Klassen and Joanne Epp to translate poetry from Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg for Burl Horniachek’s anthology To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry (2023, Poiema/Cascade).

The following poem Sally Ito wrote for me when I was seeking poetry related to the Biblical Stations of the Cross for Imago’s Toronto Arts Exhibition “Crossings: A Journey to Easter” which was presented in 2022. It is also the final poem in Heart’s Hydrography.

The Cross Speaks

I was a tree once, and of one body
that grew upward into the sky
and downward into the soil.

Many were the seasons of my life
until it ended with the ax.

Only the human would make out of my death
something out of the death of their God,
my dead body carried by him
who will die for them.

Still, I will lift him, and become the tree I once was
and I will bear him, as he bore me
and be planted once more
in the dark soil of my Creator’s nurturing.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Sally Ito: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

John Slater*

John Slater is a Trappist monk at the Abbey of the Genesee in New York State. His most recent book is Beyond Measure: The Poetics of the Image in Bernard of Clairvaux (2020, Cistercian Publications). That book is written under the name of Isaac Slater, which is the name he’s known by at the Abbey. His poetry collections have been published under his birth name ― John Slater.

The following poem was presented through a video reading by Slater, to accompany the first station in the Crossings Toronto Arts Exhibition which was presented by Imago in central Toronto from March 2 to April 14, 2022. The sixteen poems, and sixteen accompanying pieces of visual art appear in the Crossings Catalogue.

Among the sixteen Canadian poets included in Crossings Toronto are, Sarah Klassen, John Terpstra, D.S. Martin, and Sally Ito.

I encourage readers to seek out a copy, and to use this resource for devotional reflections throughout Lent and Easter for many years to come.

Entry to Jerusalem (King of Peace)

Somber Palm
Sunday all
over the
world—streets
and churches
empty.

*

He comes! they
spill out from
the City
hosanna!
scramble up
palm trees hack
off branches
wrestle from
cloaks to fling
at his feet
joyous o-
vation for
the people’s
champion
head down meek
riding a
donkey—led
into the
ring—his face
set like flint.

*

The children
swept up in
their parents’
ecstasy
dart thru crowd
cut palm wave
branches shout
hosanna!
this strange king
like them with
no standing.

*

Before the
crown of thorns
purple robe
torture—be-
comes his own
parody
of Herod
and Pilate
So you are
a king? no
followers
defending
his kingdom
by force he
shall banish
chariot
and horse the
warrior’s
bow king of
suffering
king of peace.

*

Monks process
into an
empty church
palm fronds poke
discreetly
from choir stalls
spray from vase
near altar
the chant less
exultant
than serene
and yet still
carpeting
the Master’s
path with song.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about John Slater: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Frederick William Faber

Frederick William Faber (1814―1863) is best known as a theologian and hymnist. He was born in Yorkshire into a Calvinist family of Huguenot descent, but as a student at Oxford University became greatly influenced by John Henry Newman. During this time he took extended vacations in the Lake District, to write poetry, and wrestle through theological issues. There he was befriended by William Wordsworth.

While a student at Oxford, Faber won the Newdigate Prize for poetry, which has also been won by such poets as Matthew Arnold and Oscar Wilde. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1839, however, in 1845 both he and Newman left to join the Catholic Church.

As was common for 19th century Christian poets, Faber wrote much of his verse in the form of hymns. Perhaps his best-known is — ironically — “Faith of Our Fathers.” By the twentieth century, however, this hymn was being included in Protestant hymnbooks, and A.W. Tozer included twenty pieces by Faber in his anthology, The Christian Book of Mystical Verse (1963).

The Eternity of God

O Lord! my heart is sick,
Sick of this everlasting change;
And life runs tediously quick
Through its unresting race and varied range:
Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee,
And wakes no echo in Thy mute eternity.

Dear Lord! my heart is sick
Of this perpetual lapsing time,
So slow in grief, in joy so quick,
Yet ever casting shadows so sublime:
Time of all creatures is least like to Thee,
And yet it is our share of Thine eternity.

Oh change and time are storms,
For lives so thin and frail as ours;
For change the work of grace deforms
With love that soils, and help that overpowers;
And time is strong, and, like some chafing sea,
It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity.

Weak, weak, for ever weak!
We cannot hold what we possess;
Youth cannot find, age will not seek, —
Oh weakness is the heart's worst weariness:
But weakest hearts can lift their thoughts to Thee;
It makes us strong to think of Thine eternity.

Thou hadst no youth, great God!
An Unbeginning End Thou art;
Thy glory in itself abode,
And still abides in its own tranquil heart:
No age can heap its outward years on Thee:
Dear God! Thou art Thyself Thine own eternity!

Without an end or bound
Thy life lies all outspread in light;
Our lives feel Thy life all around,
Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright;
Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea,
But the calm gladness of a full eternity.

Oh Thou art very great
To set Thyself so far above!
But we partake of Thine estate,
Established in Thy strength and in Thy love:
That love hath made eternal room for me
In the sweet vastness of its own eternity.

Oh Thou art very meek
To overshade Thy creatures thus!
Thy grandeur is the shade we seek;
To be eternal is Thy use to us:
Ah, Blessed God! what joy it is to me
To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity.

Self-wearied, Lord! I come;
For I have lived my life too fast:
Now that years bring me nearer home
Grace must be slowly used to make it last;
When my heart beats too quick I think of Thee,
And of the leisure of Thy long eternity.

Farewell vain joys of earth!
Farewell, all love that is not His!
Dear God! be Thou my only mirth,
Thy majesty my single timid bliss!
Oh in the bosom of eternity
Thou dost not weary of Thyself, nor we of Thee!

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

John of Damascus

John of Damascus (c. 675―749) is a Byzantine Greek monk, priest, theologian and poet ― born and raised in Damascus, but who lived most of his life in monasteries near Jerusalem.

He is particularly known for his defense of the use of icons. Images of Christ and of the saints were, and continue to be, central to Orthodox worship. This was against the iconoclastic campaigns Emperor Leo III started in 726. John of Damascus argued, that although the Old Testament prohibited graven images, when Christ came in the flesh as “the image of the invisible God” such restrictions were no longer applicable. His writings played a significant role during the Second Council of Nicaea (787), which convened to settle this dispute.

The following is an excerpt from Christopher Childers' translation of “Paschal Canon” which can be read in its entirety in the new anthology To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry, Beginnings to 1800, in English Translation, which was edited by Burl Horniachek. I am fortunate enough to have worked alongside Burl in the completion of this significant work.

from Paschal Canon

The day of resurrection, may all God’s people brim
------------------with light. The Lord’s Passover!
From out of death to life, from Earth to heaven’s rim,
------------------we’re borne by the Prime Mover
our God Christ, as we sing out his victory hymn.

May all our senses be perfected; may we see,
------------------in resurrection’s sheer
untouchable brightness, Christ the Lightning, and may we
------------------perceive His voice, and hear
His ringing welcome, while we hymn His victory.

Let fitting celebrations exalt the smiling skies;
------------------let raptures seize the earth.
Let all the seen and unseen cosmos melt in cries
------------------of universal mirth.
The transport of the ages, Christ, awakes to rise.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Anna Akhmatova*

Anna Akhmatova (1889—1966) is a Russian poet who lived most of her life in Saint Petersburg. Her first poetry collection, Evening (1912), established her as a significant poet, and her next two books Rosary (1914) and White Flock (1917) continued to build her reputation.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Akhmatova chose to remain in Russia even as other writers were fleeing to the West. Requiem, which she primarily wrote between 1935 and 1940, at first was about the arrest of her common-law husband Nikolay in 1935, but then became even more about the arrest of their son Lev in 1938 and his subsequent trial and sentencing.

The following is the tenth section from Requiem as translated by Stephen Capas. It appeared in the literary journal Cardinal Points in 2021.

Crucifixion

1

Don’t weep for me, Mother,
As I lie in my grave.

Choirs of angels hymned the glorious hour,
Dissolved in flame, the heavens glowed overhead.
“Why hast though forsaken me, my Father?”
And “Mother, do not weep for me,” he said.

2

Magdalen sobbed and wrung her hands in anguish,
The disciple whom he loved was still as stone.
But no one dared to look toward the place where
The Mother stood in silence, all alone.

1940-43

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Anna Akhmatova: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Claude McKay

Claude McKay (1889—1948) is a significant poet of the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in Jamaica and raised in the Baptist church. His hometown was predominantly black, but when he moved to Kingston he experienced the racism which treated blacks as subservient. After returning home, he had his first two poetry collections published in London: Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads.

In 1912 McKay went to the U.S. to attend college, financed through prize money he had received for his first book. By 1914 he moved to New York City, leaving the thought of education behind. Here he, again, was troubled by racism. He spent a couple years in Europe — primarily in Holland, Belgium and London, and by 1921 he returned to New York.

His first novel, Home to Harlem (1928) started McKay’s shift from poetry to fiction, and later to essays. He continued to travel extensively, until the mid-1940s when he moved to Chicago to worked as a teacher for a Catholic organization.

The following poem was recently featured by Victoria Emily Jones in her blog Art & Theology. It is from McKay’s 1922 book Harlem Shadows (Harcourt Brace).

A Prayer

'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.

Mine eyes are open but they cannot see for gloom of night:
I can no more than lift my heart to thee for inward light.

The wild and fiery passion of my youth consumes my soul;
In agony I turn to thee for truth and self-control.

For Passion and all the pleasures it can give will die the death;
But this of me eternally must live, thy borrowed breath.

'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Jennifer Reeser

Jennifer Reeser is a formalist Louisiana poet who has published five collections, including: An Alabaster Flask, and Sonnets from the Dark Lady and Other Poems, which was a finalist for the Donald Justice Prize.

She has been highly praised by such formalist poets as X.J Kennedy and A.M. Juster, who called her “…our top Native American poet.” As a translator, she has published poetry from Russian (Anna Akhmatova), French, and various Native American languages.

Her recent collection Indigenous (Able Muse Press) was awarded “Best Poetry Book of 2019” by Englewood Review of Books. Her new book Strong Feather is scheduled to appear this March.

The following poem is from Indigenous and was included in the anthology Christian Poetry in America Since 1940 (2022, Paraclete Press).

O Great Spirit

Great Spirit of the God who is alive,
Whose risen Son I seek before the dawn
Who makes the black and gold sunflower thrive
The earthworm loosen soil beneath the lawn;
Great Spirit, grant my late grandmothers’ looks
Attend me while I rub her cherry hutch.
Great Spirit, grant my late grandfather’s books
Preserve his signature I love to touch.
Surround and show to me that massive clouds
Of witnesses ― undauntable or docile.
Allow their countenances to enshroud
My shoulders, spoken of by Your Apostle.
Send generous Nunnehi to my steeple,
Returning me at last to my dark people.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Joseph Beaumont

Joseph Beaumont (1616―1699) was a college friend of Richard Crashaw at Cambridge, although as a poet is less known. After having received his M.A., he was among those scholars at Cambridge who lost their positions due to Royalist sympathies.

Taking advantage of the time this gave him, he spent eleven months writing his most ambitious poem ― an allegorical piece called Psyche, written in Spenserian stanzas, and consisting of 30,000 lines. The poem represents the soul journeying through difficulties toward eternal peace. It is thought to be the longest poem written in English.

During this period he became the domestic chaplain to Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, and married his step-daughter. They had six children, only one of whom survived to adulthood.

At the Restoration in 1660, he was made Doctor of Divinity and one of the king's chaplains. He became Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, and later of Peterhouse College.

The House of the Mind

As earth’s pageant passes by,
Let reflection turn thine eye
Inward, and observe thy breast;
There alone dwells solid rest.

That’s a close immurèd tower
Which can mock all hostile power:
To thyself a tenant be,
And inhabit safe and free.

Say not that this house is small,
Girt up in a narrow wall;
In a cleanly sober mind
Heaven itself full room doth find.

Th’ infinite Creator can
Dwell in it, and may not man?
Here content make thy abode
With thyself and with thy God.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Drew Jackson

Drew Jackson is a poet and the founding pastor of Hope East Village ― a church serving Manhattan’s East Village and Lower East Side. His first poetry collection God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God’s Unexpected Coming appeared in 2021 from InterVarsity Press. The poems in this collection spring from the first eight chapters of Luke’s gospel. Jackson has been receiving a lot of attention for this book, including through social media and as a finalist in the Christian Book Awards.

When asked why he selected the Gospel of Luke to focus on for these poems, he said, “Luke is intent on centering the voices of the marginalized in his telling of the gospel story. In particular, he brings to the fore the voices of the poor and women in how he tells this story. This was something that I wanted to shape this poetry collection…”

By the time this post goes up, his second book Touch the Earth: Poems on The Way (2023, IVP) will have appeared. It is a follow-up to his first collection, with poems relating to Luke 9 to 24.

The following poem is from God Speaks Through Wombs.

An Opportune Time (Out in these Streets)

Luke 4:13

I remember the day they gave me the talk:

Watch the way you walk,
out in these streets.

Pay attention to how you speak,
out in these streets.

In the car, try not to lean
out in these streets.

No durag, keep yourself clean,
out in these streets.

You won’t know at what moment,
out in these streets.

The man will be riding by,
out in these streets.

You gotta keep yourself ready,
out in these streets.

It will happen at an opportune time,
out in these streets.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This post was suggested by my friend Ryan Apple.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

David Jones*

David Jones (1895—1974) is a painter and the author of two major works of modernist poetry: In Parenthesis (1937) and The Anathemata (1952). Guy Davenport, in the New York Times Book Review, said, “For David Jones art was a sacred act and he expected the reading of his work to be as much a rite as he performed in the composing of it.”

The Poetry Foundation describes The Anathemata as “modernistic, allusive, and fragmented…” which as I see it contributes to making it one of the most difficult major poems of the twentieth century. The poem is more than 200 pages in length, and leaps from theme to theme, place to place, and from time period to time period ― including ancient Greece and Rome, Western Europe and England, and by the end reflects on the Last Supper and Christ’s Crucifixion.

The David Jones Society webpage concedes that “Jones's style has been considered 'densely allusive,' 'fragmented' and 'palimpsestic…'” It says The Anathemata “traces the course of Western culture in light of its various geographical, mythical, historical and religious roots, using the Roman Catholic Mass as a significant framework.”

According to Robert Knowles, “The achievement, then, of The Anathemata is that it is an extended metaphor of what it is to be, uniquely, modern: for Jones, old forms of faith exist alongside present forms of explanation and the difficulty remains the association or integration of this apparent duality.”

What follows are the closing stanzas of The Anathemata.

From The Anathemata

At the threshold-stone
------------------------------lifts the aged head?
can toothless beast from stable come
----------------------------------discern the Child
in the Bread?

------------But the fate of death?
Well, that fits The gest:
How else be coupled of the Wanderer
whose viatic bread shows forth a life?
------------― in his well-built megaron.
If not by this Viander’s own death’s monument
by what bride-ale else lives his undying Margaron?
------------― whose only threnody is Jugatine
and of the thalamus: reeds then! And minstrelsy.
------------(Nor bid Anubis haste, but rather stay:
for he was whelped but to discern a lord’s body).

He does what is done in many places
What he does other
------------he does after the mode
of what has always been done.
What did he do other
------------recumbent at the garnished supper?
What did he do yet other
------------riding the Axile Tree?

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about David Jones: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

King James I

King James I (1566—1625), that is James Charles Stuart, was officially the King of Scotland and known as James VI for more than thirty years ― including throughout his childhood, when regents governed on his behalf ― prior to the union of the Scottish and English crowns in 1603.

In his native Scotland, he was a literary patron, and was active as a writer himself; there he headed a circle of Scottish poets and musicians known as the Castalian Band, which included William Fowler and Alexander Montgomerie.

James’ greatest contribution to English literature is the Bible he commissioned in 1604 — which became known as the King James Version or Authorized Version — and was published in 1611. It has been called "the most celebrated book in the English-speaking world" and has had, and continues to have, significant influence on its literature.

James believed in the divine right of kings, which had been the common perspective in Scotland. In England, however, Parliament had power despite James I’s belief that they had no rights at all except by the king's grace. This belief is reflected in the following poem, although he also makes it clear that the king (and I would add that parliament, and even cruel dictators) would have no power except that it is given by God.

Sonnet Prefixed to His Majesty's Instructions
to His Dearest Son, Henry the Prince

God gives not kings the style of gods in vain,
For on His Throne His sceptre do they sway;
And as their subjects ought them to obey,
So kings should fear and serve their God again.
If then ye would enjoy a happy reign,
Observe the statutes of your Heavenly King,
And from His Law make all your laws to spring,
Since His lieutenant here ye should remain:
Reward the just; be steadfast, true, and plain;
Repress the proud, maintaining aye the right;
Walk always so as ever in His sight,
Who guards the godly, plaguing the profane,
And so ye shall in princely virtues shine,
Resembling right your mighty king divine.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

David Scott

David Scott (1947―2022) is an English poet and Anglican priest who gained attention by winning the 1978 Sunday Times/BBC Poetry Competition. This helped lead to the first of his six poetry books, A Quiet Gathering, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1986. He is best known for his poetry, but he also wrote several plays for the National Youth Music Theatre with Jeremy James Taylor, and six books about the Christian faith, including, Moments of Prayer, and The Mind of Christ.

He was vicar of Torpenhow and Allhallows in Cumbria, then Rector of St Lawrence, was an honorary canon of Winchester Cathedral, and an honorary fellow of the University of Winchester. David Scott also served as poetry reviewer for The Church Times.

In 2008 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, conferred a Lambeth Degree Doctorate of Letters (DLitt) on him “in recognition of his contribution to deepening the spiritual life of the Church through his standing as a poet and his teaching ministry…”

In 2010 David Scott took an early retirement, due to ill health. He died this past October.

The following poem is from Beyond the Drift ― New and Selected Poems, (2014, Bloodaxe Books).

Retirement

I’ll go into a wood, a barn, a room
and not come out until my heart
is settled back on God the pivot,
I the balance. A chance for poise
to get my giddy head becalmed
into stillness that absorbs. I wonder what?
Things I dare not write for fear
they might be so, the illness worse,
or better.
I’ll enter into converse with my soul
and hope again to learn a love for others,
and of others love for me.
To stop doing one thing, and discover
what refuses to be laid aside.
Nothing new perhaps; just former things
attentively revived.

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

Margaret Kellermann

Margaret Kellermann is a multi-faceted artist, expressing herself through writing, visual art and music. Her latest publication is a middle-grade novel, Annie California: Book One (2021, Beachdog). Her earlier books (prior to 2011) were written under the name of Margaret D. Smith, including the poetry collections A Holy Struggle: Unspoken Thoughts of Hopkins (1992, Shaw), and Barn Swallow (2006, Brassweight Press). She lives in Humboldt County, in northern California.

She has said, "As a writer, artist and musician, I find myself doing art in a struggle to understand how to be in love with God, who refuses to be understood, even as he begs to be in relationship. God’s presence in me is like a grain of sand. He neither shows himself visibly nor goes away, and this agitates me daily. So I cover and cover that holy irritation with layers from my own core."

The following poems are taken from anthologies; the first, "Lily", appeared in A Widening Light, and the second, "Moon", appeared in Odd Angles of Heaven.

Lily
A lily shivered
at His passing,
supposing Him to be
the Gardener

Moon

It is colder here than on the moon. At least
it is light there.

There is no singer on earth like the moon,
except the owl.

Where the coyote runs, I see the moon
stand off, watching.

Echoes of God come dancing back
from the dark lake.

In the middle of God, the moon.

How can I bear to pass by?
I will stay the night.

Look, the moon is ebbing,
one wave lapping in.

Sometimes it is hard to trust
one's eyes.

If this is the way I should go―
at least the winter moon goes with me.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams (1883―1963) ― a significant imagist poet ― was also a family physician practicing in northern New Jersey. Though not a churchgoer, he respected the faith of those he encountered through life and art. He admired Francis of Assisi for his poetic originality, his love of the natural world, and as a model of forgiveness and generosity.

In his poem “The Catholic Bells” Williams said, “Tho’ I’m no Catholic / I listen hard when the bells / in the yellow-brick tower / of their new church // ring down the leaves…”

His parents had been active members of the Rutherford Unitarian Society ― and his father read Dante and the Bible to his sons. Williams applied the Unitarian phrase “Nothing that is not true” to his imagist approach to poetry. He sought truth in the natural world, and the lives of his patients living in the tenement houses he visited. His wife, Flossie, said, “the people there expanded his imagination, and I noticed over the years how much they healed him.”

From his poem “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower,” Williams is frequently quoted as saying:
-----------------------------------------------"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
------------------------yet men die miserably every day
-------------------------------------------------for lack
of what is found there."

The following poem is William Carlos Williams’ declaration of his belief in the incarnation.

The Gift

As the wise men of old brought gifts
---guided by a star
------to the humble birthplace

of the god of love,
---the devils
------as an old print shows
retreated in confusion.

---What could a baby know
------of gold ornaments
or frankincense and myrrh,
---of priestly robes
------and devout genuflections?

But the imagination
---knows all stories
------before they are told
and knows the truth of this one
---past all defection

The rich gifts
---so unsuitable for a child
------though devoutly proffered,
stood for all that love can bring.

---The men were old
------how could they know
of a mother's needs
---or a child's
------appetite?

But as they kneeled
---the child was fed.

------They saw it
and
---gave praise!

------A miracle
had taken place,
---hard gold to love,
a mother's milk!
---before
------their wondering eyes.

The ass brayed
---the cattle lowed.
------It was their nature.

All men by their nature give praise.
---It is all
------they can do.

The very devils
---by their flight give praise.
------What is death,
beside this?

---Nothing. The wise men
------came with gifts
and bowed down
---to worship
------this perfection.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.