Paul Laurence Dunbar*

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872—1906) is a poet, novelist, and short story writer from Dayton, Ohio. His parents had both been enslaved in Kentucky before the Civil War. When he was just 16, a Dayton newspaper began to publish his poems.

His mother had learned to read in order to help young Paul with his schooling. Her desire was that he might, some day, become a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church — the first independent black denomination in the United States.

He was the only African-American student at his high school, yet became the president of the school’s literary society. One of his closest friends was Orville Wright — who, along with his brother, were early encouragers of Dunbar’s poetry. They presented it to their father who was a bishop in the Church of the Brethren — the denomination that published his first volume, Oak and Ivy (1893).

Paul Laurence Dunbar eventually published twelve poetry collections, eight books of fiction, and he also wrote the lyrics for the first all-African-American musical performed on Broadway — In Dahomey (1903) — which later toured in both the U.S. and the U.K.

Christmas Carol

----Ring out, ye bells!
----All Nature swells
With gladness at the wondrous story,—
----The world was lorn,
----But Christ is born
To change our sadness into glory.

----Sing, earthlings, sing!
----To-night a King
Hath come from heaven's high throne to bless us.
----The outstretched hand
----O'er all the land
Is raised in pity to caress us.

----Come at his call;
----Be joyful all;
Away with mourning and with sadness!
----The heavenly choir
----With holy fire
Their voices raise in songs of gladness.

----The darkness breaks
----And Dawn awakes,
Her cheeks suffused with youthful blushes.
----The rocks and stones
----In holy tones
Are singing sweeter than the thrushes.

----Then why should we
----In silence be,
When Nature lends her voice to praises;
----When heaven and earth
----Proclaim the truth
Of Him for whom that lone star blazes?

----No, be not still,
----But with a will
Strike all your harps and set them ringing;
----On hill and heath
----Let every breath
Throw all its power into singing!

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Paul Laurence Dunbar: 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.

Charles Causley*

Charles Causley (1917—2003) is a poet of our times, and yet one more in tune, musically, with the past — becoming at first known for his ballads. He was never a poet of the avant garde — and was called by Dana Gioia, in the late 1990’s, “The most unfashionable poet alive.” He lived a quiet life as a teacher at the same school he had attended, never married, and spent many years caring for his aging mother.

He wrote extensively of his native Cornwall, but also of his world travels. He served in the Royal Navy, and, after completing thirty years as a school teacher, accepted invitations to be writer-in-residence at the University of Western Australia, the Footscray Institute of Technology, Victoria, and the School of Fine Arts, Banff, Alberta.

His first poetry collection, Farewell, Aggie Weston, appeared in 1951; he began to also publish books for children beginning with Figure of 8 in 1969.

In 1984, Gioia said, “Causley’s characteristic mode is often the short narrative…” comparing him to William Blake, his “late eighteenth-century master… [who] provided him a potent example of how the poetic outsider can become a seer.” He added, “The visionary mode has its greatest range of expression in Causley’s religious poetry.”

The following poem is from Charles Causley’s small illustrated book of twelve Christmas poems Bring in the Holly (Frances Lincoln, 1992).

Mary’s Song

Your royal bed
Is made of hay
In a cattle-shed.
Sleep, King Jesus,
Do not fear,
Joseph is watching
And waiting near.

Warm in the wintry air
You lie,
The ox and the donkey
Standing by,
With summer eyes
They seem to say:
Welcome, Jesus,
On Christmas Day!

Sleep, King Jesus:
Your diamond crown
High in the sky
Where the stars look down.
Let your reign
Of love begin,
That all the world
May enter in.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Charles Causley: 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.

Mary of Nazareth

Mary is the earthly mother of Jesus, who by the power of the Holy Spirit, though she was still a virgin, conceived God’s own son. The story in Luke’s account begins with Zacharias — a man in the priestly line — being told by the angel Gabriel that he and his wife, Elizabeth, will have a child in their old age. This child was to be the one to go before the coming of the Christ to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord.

When Gabriel announces to Mary that she is to become the mother of the Messiah, he also reveals that her cousin Elizabeth is miraculously six-months-pregnant.

The following canticle is an exclamation of praise (here in the New King James Version) which was spoken by Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, whom she was visiting in the Judean hill country. It is known as “The Magnificat,” which is Latin for “magnifies” as spoken in the opening line.

The Magnificat

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.

(For those who ponder, like I have —
----How did this navigate its way
----into Luke’s account?
— check out my poem “Magnificat” from my poetry collection Poiema.)

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.

Hester Pulter

Hester Pulter (1605–1678) is a writer of poetry and prose who was completely unknown, prior to the discovery of her manuscript at Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, in 1996. Although English, she was born in County Dublin, the eighth of James Ley’s ten children. He was chief justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland, at the time of her birth, but the family returned to England in 1608.

The manuscript of her collected writing demonstrates that she was well educated — not only through the variety of literary genres she mastered, but also through her allusions to classical authors, and her interest in recent scientific discoveries. It contains one hundred and twenty poems and an unfinished prose romance. There is no evidence that her writing was ever published (prior to the 21st century) nor that it was even circulated.

It is interesting to note that John Milton wrote a sonnet in honour of James Ley, addressed to Hester’s sister Lady Margaret Ley which begins: “Daughter to that good Earl…” It was in 1626 that James Ley became the first earl of Marlborough.

She married Arthur Pulter in 1620, several months before she turned 15. They primarily lived at his inherited estate of Broadfield near the village of Cottered in Hertfordshire (pictured above). Although Lady Hester Pulter gave birth to eight daughters and seven sons — mentioned by name in her poems — she only predeceased two of them.

The Desire

Dear God, vouchsafe from Thy high throne
To see my tears, and hear my moan;
For I, in heaven and earth, have none
To pity me
In my dejected sad estate,
Wherein I’m thrown by adverse fate,
And hope in none till my last date
But only Thee.
O then be pleased my dust to raise,
To sing thy everlasting praise
In those celestial unknown lays,
With life and love.
Then shall I leave these terrene toys,
Obliviating past annoys,
And be involved in endless joys
With Thee above.

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.

Maurice Manning*

Maurice Manning is a Kentucky poet, who creates the persona of a backwoods bumpkin in his poetry. His voice is cunning, and precise in its playful images, using a disarming, unhurried conversational tone that combines humour with the simplicity and beauty of life in rural landscapes. Although, he is a professor of English and creative writing at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, and in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers in North Carolina, he still lives with his family on a small twenty-acre farm. He is vice chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

The following poem comes from Snakedoctor (2023, Copper Canyon) which is his eighth poetry collection.

The Red Chair

Believing and being hopeful and praying
are sometimes not enough to do
whatever it is I think I need—
a sort of peace in the valley for me.
But it’s truer to say my course goes through
the darker valley of the shadow.
And the shadow is proverbial,
of course, hard to describe, but the psalm
addresses it well enough. My soul
has been restored a thousand times,
but then it languishes. I get it—
nothing is easy, the struggle is part
of the so-called journey. The journey
must be proverbial too—I mean,
its not like I’m going anywhere,
just sitting in my silent room.
I sit a lot in a red chair.
I stare into space and sometimes
I don’t feel anything at all.
There’s probably something underneath
I’m missing or not fully getting.
But that’s part of it all, to be
in the dark, unknowing. To be unknowing
is a biggie when it comes to faith.
I wouldn’t want to know it all,
to have a vision so complete
you don’t have any doubts or wonders.
Why I must suffer and impair
myself in order to feel the depth
of love is a total mystery
to me. I’d prefer to go outside
and simply be alive in the green
and weather. Oh, I can do that well
enough, and have the whole transcendent
thing, but then the darkness like
a specter comes to rest beside me,
twitching, and everything becomes
abstract, proverbial, and low.
And I think, ironically, it’s dark,
It’s utter dark, this thing I must
Pass through. And thus the red chair
I occupy, from which I see
the world and am involved in love.
I’m so involved with love it’s hard
to fathom, hard to tell how much.
From my perspective, my love for the world
does not have end and has no measure.
There is no poetry in that
or a man sitting in a red chair.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Maurice Manning: 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.

Vittoria Colonna*

Vittoria Colonna (1492—1547) is an Italian poet, who was also an influential patron of the arts. She is the first woman to have published a poetry collection under her own name. After her husband died at war, she wrote many love poems to his memory which became popular.

During the 1530s she became active in religious reform, and began writing love sonnets addressed to God — which became even more influential. She pushed the traditional Petrarchan form in a new direction to express her relationship with Christ. The first edition of her Rime was published in 1538, and appeared in twelve further editions before her death.

In 1531, Colonna commissioned Titian to paint a large portrait of Mary Magdalene — one of the figures of female spirituality from scripture and early church history she selected as role models for herself and other Christian women.

She became close friends with Michelangelo — influencing his poetry, and sharing the common conviction that faith was to be experienced personally, rather than merely dictated by the church. They both believed that one of the best ways to enhance such faith was through art. She commissioned his black chalk drawing of the Virgin Mary, Pietà for Vittoria Colonna (1540) for her personal meditation.

The following translation is by Jan Zwicky and appears in in Burl Horniachek’s anthology, To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry.

Sonnets for Michelangelo — 41

When to the one he most loved, Jesus
opened what was in his heart,
when he spoke of the betrayal, the plot
that was to come, it broke
the heart inside his friend. In silence—
for the others must not know—
the tears cut gutters in his face.
But seeing this,
his master held him to his breast,
and before the ditch of pain
had closed inside, had closed his eyes
in sleep.
No eagle ever flew as high
as the divine one in the moment of that falling.
This was God, who was himself alone,
both light and mirror. His rest
true rest, his sleep
true sleep, and peace.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Vittoria Colonna: 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.

Mia Anderson

Mia Anderson is a Canadian poet, Anglican priest, and retired actress. She is the author of seven poetry collections — including her brand new book O is for Christmas: a Midwinter Night's Dream (2024, St Thomas Poetry Series). Her first collection Appetite appeared from Brick Books in 1988. Around that time she twice won the Malahat Long Poem Prize.

She spent some 25 years as an actress in Canada and Britain — including five seasons at Ontario’s Stratford Festival — but left that behind to receive her MDiv in 2000 to become a priest. With her fourth book The Sunrise Liturgy (2012, Wipf & Stock), her most theological book to date, she joined the long tradition within the Anglican Church of poet-priests.

The foreword to her new book is written by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

In 2013, the following poem won the $20,000 Montreal International Poetry Prize.

The Antenna

For Mike Endicott

The antenna is a growth not always
functional in all people.

Some can hoist their antenna with
remarkable ease—like greased lightning.

In some it is broken, stuck there in its old winged
fin socket way down under the shiny surface

never to issue forth.
Others make do with a little mobility,

a little reception, a sudden spurt of music
and joy, an aberrant hope.

And some—the crazies,
the fools of God—drive around

or sit or even sleep
with this great thin-as-a-thread

home-cobbled monkey-wrenched filament
teetering above their heads

and picking up the great I AM like
some hacker getting Patmos on his toaster.

And some, with WD40 or jig-a-loo
or repeated attempts to pry the thing up

or chisel at the socket
do not give up on this antenna

because they have heard of how it works
sometimes, how when the nights are clear

and the stars just so and the new moon has all but set,
the distant music of the spheres is transformative

and they believe in the transformation.
It is the antenna they have difficulty believing in.

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.

James Matthew Wilson

James Matthew Wilson is the founding director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas in Texas, and poet-in-residence of the Benedict XVI Institute which is centred in San Diego — although he and his family live in Michigan. He is influential as a poet, critic, and scholar, particularly in Catholic and conservative circles. He regularly contributes to such magazines as First Things, The New Criterion, National Review, and The American Conservative.

Among his fourteen published books are several poetry collections; his latest is Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds (Word on Fire, 2024). As a poet he is clearly a formalist, which is evident in his roles as Poetry Editor for Modern Age magazine, and as Series Editor for Colosseum Books.

The following poem first appeared in the 2024 issue of Presence.

A Dedication to My Wife
----of a book of Anne Bradstreet's poems

If ever two were one, then why not we?
We have begot two in our unity
And find these incarnation of our love
Whatever other mercy from above
Rains down on me—the joys of work, the ease
Of sunshine, peace in thought—may He still please
To let me share these goods with you; or, better,
To let us know them in one heart, our letter
Sign with one name, and find in every hour
Not failing moments but a lating power
That, met with suffering or trial, endures,
Like cellared wine grow fine as it matures.

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

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.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926) is an Austrian poet born in Prague. Although he is not a Christian, he did receive an intensely Catholic upbringing through his mother. This provided him with Christian imagery and stories, which significantly influenced his concepts of the spiritual life as he created his own mythological landscape.

When Rike refers to God he has his own pantheistic ideas in mind — although for a reader with Christian understanding of who God is, the interpretation might often remain orthodox.

Rainer Maria Rilke is known for his lyrical intensity — particularly in his Duino Elegies which begins, Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic / orders? And even if one of them pressed me / suddenly to his heart: I’d be consumed / in his stronger existence…

In my own poem “Response to Rilke” I have my angelic narrator reply,
----There are few angels---to firsthand hear your cries
--------for some circle the earth
----------------turning away terrors you’ve no knowledge of…
----& though I once was called---to oversee your sojourn
----it was never mine---to turn you left or right
---------------------------or hold you in my embrace…

So many translations of Rilke’s poems appear in journals, anthologies, books, and on the internet, including by such noteworthy poets as Seamus Heaney. Since, like most of you, I don’t speak German, I must content myself with English translations, comparing one with another, and hanging onto the versions that grip me most.

I have been arrested by Rilke’s poem “Autumn” (“Herbst” in German) from The Book of Images many times in various translations. The subtleties from one translation to another deepens my appreciation of the original poem.

Susan McLean translates the opening couplet as
----The leaves are falling, falling from on high,
----As if far gardens withered in the sky.

And Robert Klein Engler has the third line read:
----to teeter with the grace of letting go.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The following beautiful version is a translation by Charles L. Cingolani.

Autumn

The leaves fall, as from afar,
as if withered in heaven's remote gardens;
it is with reluctance that they fall.

And during the nights weighty earth falls
from all the stars into solitude.

All of us fall. This hand falls here.
And look at others: All of them fall.

But there is One, Who holds what falls
with infinite tenderness in His hands.

Even though this is my favourite translation, I appreciate some alternate ways certain lines are carried into English.

Edward Snow renders the final couplet as:
----And yet there is One who holds this falling
----with infinite softness in his hands.

And J.B. Leishman translates it:
----And yet there’s One whose gently-holding hands
----This universal falling can’t fall through.

Despite Rilke’s fragmented acceptance of a Biblical concept of God, his poem does draw us toward a beautiful truth.

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.

Stella Nesanovich

Stella Nesanovich is a poet who was born and raised in New Orleans. She has published two collections: Vespers at Mount Angel (2004, Xavier Review Press) and Colors of the River (2015, Yellow Flag). She has also published four chapbooks. She is Professor Emerita of English from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Philip C. Kolin said when Colors of the River was about to appear, “With her exquisite new collection, Stella Nesanovich is undoubtedly one of Louisiana’s most gifted poets and a contributor to the Southern elegiac tradition…”

Since that time, her poem “Everyday Grace” has received significant attention after it first appeared in the literary journal Third Wednesday in 2016. Ted Kooser featured it in “American Life in Poetry” — a column which was included in numerous newspapers. “Everyday Grace” can be read on the website of The Poetry Foundation and has been posted to many other internet sites.

The following poem first appeared at Reformed Journal.

Blue Light

The color of deep ice, the blue
frozen in crevasses, a hue
like none other. Such ice
holds memory in that intensity,
a siren song that calls the body.

The early dark of autumn
afternoons, the sky’s cobalt
evoke delight even as sun
departs, leading us
to the depths of night.

One fall, I sat in blue light
cast by stained glass,
a luminous veil. Amazed
by a message I heard
in prayer, I lingered
in tinted brilliance, gazed
about to see if others knew.

Was Gabriel an azure shimmer
when Mary heard him speak
the miracle to grace her life?
Often our answered prayers
are wisps of such light.

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.

Emperor Kangxi

Emperor Kangxi (1654—1722) — whose personal name is Xuanye — ruled in China for 61 years, during the Qing Dynasty, including for several years as a child under four regents until he came of age. He is revered for establishing a period of peace, and for encouraging the pursuits of literature and religion.

Under his influence vast encylopedias were compiled, as well as the Kangxi Chinese dictionary. In 1705, he commissioned The Complete Tang Poems —a collection of 49,000 lyric poems by more than 2,200 poets.

In 1692, Kangxi issued the Edict of Toleration, which barred attacks on churches, and legalized the practice of Christianity among Chinese people. He wanted to maintain oversite of Chinese Christians himself, and resisted the control of Pope Clement XI who issued a papal bull in 1715 condemning certain traditional Chinese religious practices. The emperor responded by banning missionaries from entering China.

Various people have sought to claim Kangxi as an adherent of their beliefs. He was a Neo-Confucian, who sponsored the construction, preservation, and restoration of many Buddhist sites, and who wrote poetry — such as the following poem of Christian faith.

The following qi-yen-she poem follows a traditional format — using seven Chinese characters in each line, and including the numbers one through ten.

基督死
功成十字血成溪 ，千丈恩流分自西。
身列四衙半夜路，徒方三背兩番鸡。
五百鞭达寸肌裂，六尺悬垂二盜齐。
慘恸八垓惊九品，七言一毕万灵啼。

The Death of Christ

When the work of the cross is done, blood flowed like a river,
Grace from the west flowed a thousand yards deep,
On the midnight road he was subjected to four trials,
Before the rooster crowed twice, three times betrayed by a disciple.
Five hundred lashes tore every inch of skin,
Two thieves hung on either side, six feet high,
Sadness greater than any had ever known,
Seven words, one completed task, ten thousand spirits weep.

Since all ten numbers don’t come through in this English translation, they are laid out here:
----1- — once for all, the finished work, or the one task
----2- — two thieves
----3- — three times denied
----4- — four trials back and forth
----5- — five hundred stripes
----6- — six feet high on the cross
----7- — the seven last words of Christ from the cross
----8- — eight compass points — to the furthermost point of the world
----9- — nine ranks of officials — all walks of people
----10 — Chinese numeral ten, which is the pictograph of the cross

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.

Bede

Bede — often referred to as the Venerable Bede (673—735) — is an Anglo-Saxon poet, priest, theologian, scholar and historian. His best-known work is Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), which outlines a history of England, beginning with the invasion by Julius Ceasar in 55 BC, and describes the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon people. From this work came the method of dating events from Christ’s Birth (BC and AD).

At age seven, he was sent by his family to the monastery of Monkwearmouth to receive his education. He spent most of his life in the monastery, and its sister monastery at Jarrow, although he also travelled to various monasteries throughout Britain.

It is through Bede that we know that Cædmon (657—680) — besides his one surviving hymn — also wrote many poems about Genesis and the Gospels.

The following poem — also known as Bede’s Lament — is the most-copied Old English poem in ancient manuscripts; according to tradition it was written on his deathbed, although there is no evidence that he was the author. Here are a couple renderings of the poem in English. I include them both to assist us in our reflections.

Bede’s Death Song

Facing Death, that inescapable journey,
who can be wiser than he
who reflects, while breath yet remains,
on whether his life brought others happiness, or pains,
since his soul may yet win delight's or night's way
after his death-day.

Bede’s Death Song

Before the unavoidable journey there, no one becomes
wiser in thought than him who, by need,
ponders, before his going hence,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his day of death, will be judged.

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.

Luke Harvey

Luke Harvey is a poet who describes himself as “living in the interstate / between two worlds” — that is, in Chickamauga, Georgia, just ten miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee. He works as a high school teacher in that other world. He also writes for and works on the poetry editorial panel for The Rabbit Room.

Harvey’s debut poetry collection Let’s Call It Home has just appeared as part of the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. I am honoured to have worked with Luke in editing this fine book for publication.

The English poet Malcolm Guite has written of this new collection, “Time and again these poems do what poetry does best: they transfigure the familiar and so reveal something of its meaning: …from the mystery of the earthworm rising towards the rain, to the family who find that feeding a child pureed peas is an entirely sacramental act, in poem after poem Luke Harvey gives us a glimpse of what George Herbert called ‘Heaven in Ordinary’.”

The following poem is from Let’s Call It Home.

After the Murder

The crux of the matter is what to do.
with the body now crumbled

in your hands. Logic says dismember
it, scrubbing beneath your fingernails

to rinse away any condemning
evidence of having been at the scene

of the slaughter, then bury the axe.
Or maybe you play it cool, act

like it’s nothing new to hold a carcass
in your cupped palms, like really this

is something you do on a weekly basis,
nonchalant as a Sunday stroll. Of course,

you wouldn’t be here in the first place
if you were one to listen to logic,

so disregard that. You’re holding the flesh
and blood of another. This is no time for logic.

Pray for forgiveness and devour it,
wiping first one cheek, then the other.

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.

Adam Mickiewicz*

Adam Mickiewicz (1798—1855) is often referred to as Poland’s greatest poet. “He was at once the Homer and the Dante of the Polish nation,” said the poet and critic Jan Lechoń.

In 1824, after having been briefly imprisoned for pro-Polish independence activities, Mickiewicz was banished to Russia. He quickly became popular in the literary society of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and befriended Alexander Pushkin. After five years of exile he was given permission to travel to Europe; he settled in Rome, and later in Paris.

In the Preface to the book Metaphysical Poems (2023, Brill) — which includes essays about Mickiewicz and a large selection of his poems (both in the original Polish and in English translation) — the selection of poems are said to show Mickiewicz to be,
----“…part of the diverse culture of European Romanticism, as well
----as the great metaphysical and mystical tradition extending from
----the classical culture of Greece and Rome, through mediaeval
----Christendom, to the early-modern Reformation and Enlightenment.
----In these poems Mickiewicz testifies to a spiritual longing for God
----and the meaning of human existence, a longing which transcends not
----only national, ethnic and linguistic boundaries, but also
----religious denominations.”

The following poem was translated by Mateusz Stróżyński and Jaspreet Singh Boparai and appears in Metaphysical Poems (2023 Brill).

Reason and Faith

When I have bowed proud reason and my head
Before the Lord like clouds before the sun:
The Lord raised them up like a rainbow bright
And painted them with myriad dazzling rays.

And it will shine, a witness to our faith,
When from the heavenly dome disaster flows;
And when we fear the flood, the rainbow will
Remind us of the covenant once more.

Oh, Lord! Humility has made me proud,
For even though I shine in heavenly realm —
My Lord! — the shine’s not mine! It’s but a weak
Reflection of your glorious, dazzling fires!

I looked upon the lowly realms of Man,
On his opinions’ varying tones and hues:
To reason they appeared large and confused,
But to the eyes of faith they’re small, and clear

All the proud scholars! Also you I see!
The storm is throwing you around like trash.
You are enclosed like snails in little shells,
While you desire to comprehend the globe.

They claim: “Necessity! It blindly rules
The world like the moon which governs the waves.”
While others say: “It’s Accident which plays
In Man like winds that frolic in the sky.”

There is a Lord who has embraced the sea
And made it trouble Earth eternally;
But carved for it the boundary in rock,
Designed to act as an eternal check.

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

Seamus Heaney*

Seamus Heaney (1939—2013) is one of Ireland’s most respected poets. He grew up in the north and — not for political or religious reasons — moved to the south in 1972. He has also been shared by the US (he taught for one semester a year at Harvard for 20 years) and England (he was Poetry Professor at Oxford for five years).

In his poetry he frequently preserves memories of the past — the sound and feel of how tasks were accomplished during his childhood, other aspects of the way rural life was, and memories of family, church, and school life. He said, “Almost always [a poem] starts from some memory, something you’d forgotten that comes up like a living gift of presence.” For Heaney, though, such thoughts require further reflection. “That is the kind of poem I really like: the stimulus in memory, but the import, hopefully, more than just the content of memory.”

The following poem is, by my count, the third time Heaney has taken on this story from the Gospels (Matthew 9, Mark 2, Luke 5). The first was in his book Seeing Things (1991), the second in Human Chain (2010) — and this one appeared in Poetry Ireland Review in 2014, after Heaney’s death. As far as I know, it has not been collected in a posthumous poetry collection.

The Latecomers

He saw them come, then halt behind the crowd
That wailed and plucked and ringed him, and was glad
They kept their distance. Hedged on every side,

Harried and responsive to their need,
Each hand that stretched, each brief hysteric squeal –
However he assisted and paid heed,

A sudden blank letdown was what he’d feel
Unmanning him when he met the pain of loss
In the eyes of those his reach had failed to bless.

And so he was relieved the newcomers
Had now discovered they’d arrived too late
And gone away. Until he hears them, climbers

On the roof, a sound of tiles being shifted,
The treble scrape of terra cotta lifted
And a paralytic on his pallet

Lowered like a corpse into a grave,
Exhaustion and the imperatives of love
Vied in him. To judge, instruct, reprove,

And ease them body and soul.
Not to abandon but to lay on hands.
Make time. Make whole. Forgive.

*This is the fourth Kingdom Poets post about Seamus Heaney: first post, second post, third 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.

Ann Griffiths*

Ann Griffiths (1776—1805) is a hymnist of rural Wales whose poetic achievement is treasured by those who speak the Welsh language. She grew up in a family who faithfully attended their parish church and, like their neighbours, enjoyed traditional noson lawen evenings of singing with the harp and dancing.

In the mid-1790s, she embraced the spiritual renewal of the Methodist revival that was sweeping through Wales. This is when she began composing her hymns and poems, only a few of which she actually wrote down.

She recited them to her friend Ruth Hughes, who also committed them to memory. After Ann Griffiths died, it was Ruth’s husband, John Hughes, who published them. John was a teacher and preacher who had corresponded extensively with Ann as a spiritual mentor.

In the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, Gomer Morgan Roberts describes her verse as “characterized by a wealth of scriptural allusion, by deep religious and mystical feeling, and by bold metaphors.”

The following poem, translated into English by George Richard Gould Pughe, is from a collection called, The Hymns of Ann Griffiths, of Dolwar Fechan, which was published in 1900. It is available online through Project Gutenberg.

Hymn VI

“But God is faithful” 1 Cor. x, 18.

“Cofia, Arglwydd, dy ddyweddi,”

Lord, remember, we implore Thee,
----And defend from every foe
Thy poor spouse that bends before Thee
----Palpitating as a doe:
Be Thou unto her a Pillar
----To direct her in the night,—
To illuminate and fill her
----With the lustre of Thy Light.

Life is far more strange than fiction,—
----But its immortality
In defiance of affliction
----Magnifies its mystery.
When the winnowing commences,
----Lord, enable us to stand
Purified from past offences
----At the last on Thy Right Hand.

O that, as a cloud ascending
----Upwards to the skies above,
We may rise, and with unending
----Rapture realise Thy Love!
Three in One, The Same as ever,
----God proclaims His Name to be
Alpha and Omega, never
----Failing in fidelity.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Ann Griffiths: 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.

Andrew Lansdown*

Andrew Lansdown is a significant Australian poet. His new collection, The Farewell Suites has just been published by Cascade Books as part of the Poiema Poetry Series.

Fransesca Stewart wrote of his Abundance: New & Selected Poems (2020, Poiema/Cascade) in Westerly Magazine from the University of Western Australia,

-----“Abundance offers a rich and varied view of the world through
-----Lansdown’s eyes. By noticing the miraculous and the mundane,
-----and with an ever-present awareness of the passing of time,
-----these poems pay attention to ordinary life and bring a captivating
-----intensity of presence and emotion. Lansdown… by turning the poetic
-----gaze upon himself… displays acute self-awareness and disarming
-----vulnerability in observing his mind, emotions and reactions to life.”

With his new poetry collection, Andrew Lansdown becomes even more publicly vulnerable. Here he carries us through all the heartache of losing loved ones — the death of three brothers, his wife’s miscarriage, and the final farewell to a dearly loved mother and father. For the rest of us, who have experienced varying degrees of the same thing — or who soon will — The Farewell Suites is an eloquent reminder that in this we are not alone.

I am honoured to have worked with Andrew as his editor for both of these books.

Lamplight

The lamp of the Lord—
that’s how the word of the Lord
describes the spirit of a man.

And looking at my father
sunken into his deathbed
I sense and see the truth of it.

Now his spirit has returned
(a little ruined, a lot redeemed)
to the Lord who gave it,

how dark it is, his body,
how utterly given over
to bleakness and blackness,

its lamplight all extinguished.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Andrew Lansdown: 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.

Venantius Fortunatus

Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530—c. 609) is a Latin poet who was born in the northeast of what is now Italy, and was educated at Ravenna. He later travelled as a wandering minstrel, and as a pilgrim to worship at the shrine of St Martin in Tours and other shrines. It is believed that his intent in moving to Metz, in what is now Northeast France, was to become a poet at the Merovingian Court.

Fortunatus performed a celebration poem for a royal wedding in 566, and soon found patrons among the nobility and bishops. Around 576 he was ordained, and by around 600 he became the Bishop of Poitiers.

The following poem was translated in the 19th century from the Latin by Edward Caswall. It appears in Burl Horniachek’s anthology, To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry.

Sing, My Tongue, the Saviour’s Glory

Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory;
Tell His triumph far and wide;
Tell aloud the famous story
Of His body crucified;
How upon the cross a victim,
Vanquishing in death, He died.

Eating of the tree forbidden,
Man had sunk in Satan’s snare,
When our pitying Creator did
This second tree prepare;
Destined, many ages later,
That first evil to repair.

Such the order God appointed
When for sin He would atone;
To the serpent thus opposing
Schemes yet deeper than his own;
Thence the remedy procuring,
Whence the fatal wound had come.

So when now at length the fullness
of the sacred time drew nigh,
Then the Son, the world’s Creator,
Left his Father’s throne on high;
From a virgin’s womb appearing,
Clothed in our mortality.

All within a lowly manger,
Lo, a tender babe He lies!
See his gentle Virgin Mother
Lull to sleep his infant cries!
While the limbs of God incarnate
‘Round with swathing bands she ties.

Thus did Christ to perfect manhood
In our mortal flesh attain:
Then of His free choice He goeth
To a death of bitter pain;
And as a lamb, upon the altar of the cross,
For us is slain.

Lo, with gall His thirst He quenches!
See the thorns upon His brow!
Nails His tender flesh are rending!
See His side is opened now!
Whence, to cleanse the whole creation,
Streams of blood and water flow.

Faithful Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest Weight is hung on thee!

Lofty tree, bend down thy branches,
To embrace thy sacred load;
Oh, relax the native tension
Of that all too rigid wood;
Gently, gently bear the members
Of thy dying King and God.

Tree, which solely wast found worthy
The world’s Victim to sustain.
Harbor from the raging tempest!
Ark, that saved the world again!
Tree, with sacred blood anointed
Of the Lamb for sinners slain.

Blessing, honour, everlasting,
To the immortal Deity;
To the Father, Son, and Spirit,
Equal praises ever be;
Glory through the earth and heaven
To Trinity in Unity. Amen

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 Gascoyne*

David Gascoyne (1916—2001) is an English poet whose first poetry collection appeared when he was just sixteen. He travelled to Paris in 1933 and became not only influenced by the surrealist movement, but became its spokesman to Britain — translating the poetry of Salvador Dali, Benjamin Peret, and André Breton.

Gascoyne also became a significant poet himself, writing original surrealist verse in his well-received second book of poems Man’s Life Is This Meat. By his third collection, however he had lost faith in surrealism, and began writing the mystical poems of an anguished Christian seeker. Elizabeth Jennings wrote, “I do not think … he really found his own voice or his own individual means of expression until he started writing the poems which appeared in the volume entitled Poems, 1937–42…”

The following poem is one of them, which was written in 1938.

Kyrie

Is man’s destructive lust insatiable? There is
Grief in the blow that shatters the innocent face.
Pain blots out clearer sense. And pleasure suffers
The trial thrust of death in even the bride’s embrace.
The black catastrophe that can lay waste our worlds
May be unconsciously desired. Fear masks our face;
And tears as warm and cruelly wrung as blood
Are tumbling even in the mouth of our grimace.
How can our hope ring true? Fatality of guilt
And complicated anguish confounds time and place;
While from the tottering ancestral house an angry voice
Resounds in prophecy. Grant us extraordinary grace,
O spirit hidden in the dark in us and deep,
And bring to light the dream out of our sleep.

The following is one version of a piece by Gascoyne from his New Collected Poems, although I’ve encountered a significantly different version elsewhere.

The Son of Man is in Revolt

The Son of Man is in revolt
Against the god of men.
The Son of God who took the fault
Of men away from them
To lay it in himself on God
Has nowhere now to rest God’s head
But in the heart of human solitude.

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

Jack Ridl

Jack Ridl is an American poet who served for 37 years as a professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Two of his recent poetry collections are Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (2019) and Practicing to Walk Like a Heron (2013) which won the National Gold Medal for poetry by ForeWord Reviews; both were published by Wayne State University Press.

His newest collection, All at Once, will be published by CavanKerry Press this fall. Check out his “Letter to an Aspiring Poet” published earlier this year at Reformed Journal.

In 1996 The Carnegie (CASE) Foundation named him Michigan Professor of the Year. Perhaps a greater tribute to his teaching, is that nine of his students are included in Naomi Shihab Nye’s anthology Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 (2010, HarperCollins), more than 90 of Jack’s students have earned MFA degrees, and more than 100 are published authors.

The following poem first appeared in Image.

Bartholemew: Disciple

I never knew what was going on.

He would say, “Let’s go,” and we
would follow. “Follow” was his word.

And we would. Fools we were to let that
take us all that way. Why we did to this day

I don’t know. Look how it ended. Look
what it became. But what did we have

to stay for? Nothing. There wasn’t much
work. Nothing much to do. There were no

stories left. Bread. Fish. So we ended up
with more bread and fish. But we did find

stories and stories. Well, what else is there?
I never did much along the way. Look it up.

In the big deal painting I’m the one who appears
rather glassy eyed, and believe me, it wasn’t the wine.

I just went along. The miracles had been done before.
I will say, though, that it was his words. Words!

Imagine. Words had never done what his did.
I’d listen, and I wasn’t much of a listener. Then

later I would try to make sense of them. I couldn’t.
But I could feel them. And maybe that was it, how

they got inside you and made you wonder and wrinkle.
They got in my brain’s garden and made it seem like

the roots were above ground and all the flowers and
vegetables, all the nourishing, were now below.

He didn’t reverse things, exactly—the first shall be
last and the last first and all that. It was that everything

changed inside me when he said those things. It was
what happened to me. I started looking at lepers and the poor

and paid no attention anymore to the kings and scribes and
Pharisees. I had thought the world of them. Now they seemed

unimportant in their importance. See? See how hard it is to
explain this stuff? You just started seeing everything with a

new mind. You began to be drawn to a whole new world,
and it was a world. Like now. A world within a world, one

drawing you, the other imposing itself on you. Why am I
telling you what you already know? Erosions. That’s it.

The reversals were erosions. And in what was left, I
wanted to plant what didn’t belong. Lilies in fields.

You might say, okay, whatever, and yet those words
did become flesh, my flesh. And my flesh, my body, held

the kingdom of God, and if it’s a place that’s a place
for children, then most of what I know really doesn’t matter.

Labor doesn’t, and money, and reason, and, well, you
go make a list. He’d get me so confused. And then we’d

head off worrying about how we would eat and where
we’d sleep. Our feet were filthy. My God, we were always

filthy. We stank. And then he’d go and point at birds or
stalks of grain, even stop and have us kneel before a flower,

and then he’d smile. That haunts me still. That smile.
And then he died. He brought out hate, not love. He had

a terrifying sense of justice. Nothing he said or did
was impossible. Maybe that was it. It was all possible.

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.

Jacob Stratman*

Jacob Stratman is the author of two poetry collections. His first, What I Have I Offer With Two Hands, is part of the Poiema Poetry Series (2019, Cascade). His new release is The Shell of Things (2024, Kelsay Books).

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner of The Christian Century says, “These are strong and sturdy poems,” but she reserves her highest praise for “the stunning, lyrical sequence which describes the author’s residency in Korea where ‘he can only see the shell of things’ as he lives in a new land and language, requiring acts of creation provoked by an unfamiliar setting as he finds his footing and searches for the words to describe what he observes.”

He is a professor and dean at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, where he lives with his wife and two sons. As mentioned above, he and his family spent a year at Handong Global University in Pohang, South Korea, where he taught writing and literature courses.

The following poem is from The Shell of Things.

A Prayer for My 15-Year-Old, Who Is Set Apart

He won’t come out of his room very often—
only to eat what we’ve prepared, only to receive
love that doesn’t always look like anything he wants,
yet time is a friend of the God who creates it.


He won’t come out of his room very often,
or speak in complete sentences or listen
long enough to attend to the beauty of silences
yielded here, prepared just for him. Not yet.

He won’t come out of his room very often,
out of himself very often, but we will wait,
leaving this space empty of our wishes
You will fill with hope, with Your self.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Jacob Stratman: 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.

Henry Constable

Henry Constable (1562—1613) is a poet and diplomat who is particularly known for one of the earliest sonnet sequences in English — Diana (1592). After graduating from Cambridge in 1580, he moved to Paris to begin his diplomatic career. From there he transferred to Heidelberg, and perhaps after that to Poland.

He spoke up in support of Protestant causes while at Queen Elizabeth’s court, where he became a favourite. In 1589 he was sent to Edinburgh to attend the marriage of King James VI of Scotland. Though at first outwardly appearing to be a Protestant, Constable eventually made public his conversion to Catholicism.

In 1595, Constable fled to the continent to avoid prosecution for his Catholic views. He wrote many letters to England, seeking assistance, visited Scotland, and around 1602 returned to England in secret. He was soon captured and held in the Tower of London. Even after his friend James I came to the English throne in 1603, he was not released — not until late in 1604. Several years later he left England for good, and died in Belgium.

O Gracious Shepherd

O gracious Shepherd! for Thy simple flock
By guileful goats to ravening wolves misled,
Who Thine own dear heart's precious blood didst shed,
And lamb-like offered to the butcher's block:
O gracious Shepherd! unremoving Rock
Of succour to all such as thither fled,
Respect one of Thy flock which followèd
These cursèd goats, and doth repentant knock,
To be with mercy taken to Thy fold.
I know Thy grace doth still for wanderers look;
I was a lost sheep once: dear Lord! behold,
And in compassion take me with Thy hook.
In one lost sheep new found, Thou dost rejoice;
Then know Thy sheep, which knows his Shepherd's voice.

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.

Julian of Norwich

Julian of Norwich (1342―1416) is a mystic and theologian known almost exclusively through her writings, which are the earliest-surviving works in English by a woman. It is not even certain that her name was Julian, for that may have come from St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, where she lived most of her life as an anchoress.

Her story is that on the eighth of May, 1373, while she was believed to be on her deathbed, a curate, holding a crucifix above the foot of her bed was administering to her the last rites. Staring at the crucifix she began to lose her sight, and saw Jesus beginning to bleed. From this beginning she received sixteen visions of Christ.

The following excerpt, although not originally set out as poetry, has been placed in stanzas on the page to emphasize the poetic quality of Julian’s writings.

from Showings or Revelations of Divine Love

And in this he showed me a little thing
the quantity of a hazelnut,
lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed.
And it was as round as any ball.

I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding,
and thought, ‘What may this be?’
And it was answered generally thus,
“It is all that is made.”

I marvelled how it might last,
for I thought it might
suddenly have fallen to nothing
for littleness.

And I was answered in my understanding:
It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.
And so have all things their beginning
by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties.
The first is that God made it.
The second that God loves it.
And the third, that God keeps it.

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.

Pat Schneider

Pat Schneider (1934—2020) is a poet and workshop leader who founded Amherst Writers & Artists in Massachusetts in 1981. She served for thirty years as the director of AWA. She describes the writing method she developed to help others discover their deepest stories in her book Writing Alone and With Others (2003, Oxford University Press).

When she was ten, growing up in St. Louis, she was sent to an orphanage because of the difficulties her single mother faced with poverty. This experience influenced her, and her husband Peter (a Methodist minister) to devote themselves for years to social justice ministry.

She wrote five poetry collections, including Another River: New and Selected Poems (2005). She taught at the University of Massachusetts, the University of Connecticut, Smith College and was an adjunct faculty member at the Graduate Theological Union and Pacific School of Religion. She is also known for her libretti and plays, which have been widely performed, including at Carnegie Hall.

Welcoming Angels

Between the last war
and the next one,
waiting for the northbound train
that travels by the river,
I sit alone in the middle of the night
and welcome angels.
Welcome back old hymns, old songs,
all the music, the rhyme and rhythm,
welcome angels, archangels,
welcome early guesses,
at the names of things,
welcome wings.
I have grown tired of disbelief.
What once was brave is boring.
Welcome back to my embrace stranger,
visitor beside the Jabbok.
Welcome wrestling until dawn,
until it is my hip thrown out of joint,
my pillow stone, my ladder
of antique assumptions.
Welcome what is not my own:
glory on top rung, coming down.

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.

George Mackay Brown*

George Mackay Brown (1921—1996) is a poet of Scotland’s north coast Orkney Islands. He studied with Edwin Muir at Newbattle Abbey College, near Edinburgh, and earned his MA from the University of Edinburgh, where he did post-graduate research on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

While in Edinburgh he became part of the Milne’s Bar crowd, which included Hugh MacDiarmid and Norman MacCaig. He was briefly engaged to Stella Cartwright — “the muse of Milne’s Bar” — but returned to his hometown of Stromness, where he lived unmarried for the rest of his life.

George Mackay Brown once wrote that his themes were "mainly religious (birth, love, death, resurrection, ceremonies of fishing and agriculture)…"

The following poem is from his collection Carve the Runes and appears in Selected Poems 1952—1992.

Daffodils

Heads skewered with grief
Three Marys at the cross
(Christ was wire and wax
festooned on a dead tree)

Guardians of the rock,
their emerald tapers touch
the pale wick of the sun
and perish before the rose
bleeds on the solstice stone
and the cornstalk unloads
peace from hills of thorn

Spindrifting blossoms
from the gray comber of March
thundering on the world,
splash our rooms coldly with
first grace of light, until
the corn-tides throb, and fields
drown in honey and fleeces

Shawled in radiance
tissue of sun and snow
three bowl-bound daffodils
in the euclidian season
when darkness equals light
and the world’s circle shudders
down to one bleeding point
Mary Mary and Mary
triangle of grief.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about George Mackay Brown: 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.

Luci Shaw*

Luci Shaw is 95 years old, and a trail-blazer for generations of Christian poets who value her accomplishments as a model for how to walk the precarious path of faith and art. Her seventeenth poetry collection Reversing Entropy appeared from Paraclete Press this spring. She says in the Prologue,

-----“Our universe, and the systems within it, constantly shift from
-----their created states of order towards disorder, or chaos. The
-----second law of thermodynamics asserts that entropy, or disorder,
-----always increases with time. Creative human activities such as art,
-----architecture, music, story, or film are human efforts to halt and
-----reverse this loss of meaning…. [Poems] reverse entropy because
-----they are moving from a state of disorder (all the random ideas,
-----words,and phrases available to the writer) into an orderly form
-----designed by the writer to create meaningful images and concepts
-----in the reader’s mind….This transfer of images, concepts, and ideas
-----into the mind of a reader is the task of poetry and the calling of
-----the poet. Just as a composer of music gathers rhythms, notes,
-----melodies, or harmony, organizing them into fugues or sonatas
-----or concertos, so poets work and write to discover ways of
-----arranging their responses to the world in words that introduce
-----meaning and beauty in the mind of the reader. Which is what I’ve
-----been trying to do for most of my life."

The following poem is from Reversing Entropy (2024, Iron Pen/Paraclete).

Older

Aging haunts, will hunt us all, a predator,
rapacious, ravenous, toothed with sharp anxieties.
The scars of old and unhealed wounds hide
in the folds of soul skin. Blood stains the ground.
Failures, regrets have left torn tissues,
ragged blemishes and a crimson trail
across the room. You feel it wet, sticky, seeping
between your bare toes. In the thick night,
You wrestle with dreams, contend with confusion.

How good it would be if the anxiety of aging,
bulky and useless, were a piece of furniture.
You might remove it from the living room and
store it somewhere dark, out of sight—
in the basement, perhaps, locked behind
the cellar door. Then you could climb back up to
the clean kitchen, a room predictable enough
to allay suspicion. You’d open a window,
maybe prepare a simple meal. Pray.

Posted with permission of the poet.

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

Yared

Yared (505—571) is an Ethiopian composer, hymn writer, and priest, who was a leader in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church which venerates him as a saint.

He is renowned for having established his own system of musical notation, which predates the familiar European system, and is still in use today.

One of the important festivals within the Ethiopian Church is Meskel, where they celebrate the reputed discovery of the true cross by Queen Helena, the mother of Constantine. The story goes that while she was seeking for the Holy Sepulchre, she prayed for assistance, and was directed to where the cross was buried by the smoke from a fire. What interests me most here, is not the artifact’s authenticity, but the extent to which Yared and his contemporaries valued it, because they celebrated the work Christ did on the cross.

The following selection from Yared’s “The Finding of the True Cross” was translated from the Ge’ez by Burl Horniachek with Ralph Lee, and appears in Burl Horniachek’s anthology, To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry (2023, Poiema/Cascade).

From The Finding of the True Cross

Look and proclaim, how good
it is that men have obtained
this exalted wood.
Brief gold was not the currency
----to purchase back man’s soul,
--------but with his precious blood
------------he chose to pay that toll.
The cross shines out.
The cross shines out and is so bright
that earthly kings do trail its light;
the thing that seemed so dark and damp
is now the world’s great guiding lamp.
The cross’s feast takes place
----both high in heaven’s face
and low upon the earth.
----We know its worth,
prize and praise it, with no dearth
----of trust. It is man’s rebirth
and help in need.

Posted with permission of 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.