Marilyn Nelson is an American poet, translator, children’s book author, professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut, and the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut. She has won several awards, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Denise Levertov Award, and the Frost Medal.
Mark Doty has said, “Nelson’s bold and sure poems long for heaven and—happily for us—continue a lifelong affair with the occasions of earth.”
In an interview with Jeanne Murray Walker she said, “I’m not particularly interested in writing about my life. I’m one of the lucky ones, with too happy a life for poetry.” This has led her to researching and writing about the lives of such people as Emmett Till, George Washington Carver, Venture Smith, and some lesser-known people.
The following poem is from For The Body (Louisiana State University Press, 1978).
Churchgoing
The Lutherans sit stolidly in rows;
only their children feel the holy ghost
that makes them jerk and bobble and almost
destroys the pious atmosphere for those
whose reverence bows their backs as if in work.
The congregation sits, or stands to sing,
or chants the dusty creeds automaton.
Their voices drone like engines, on and on,
and they remain untouched by everything;
confession, praise, or likewise, giving thanks.
The organ that they saved years to afford
repeats the Sunday rhythms song by song,
slow lips recite the credo, smother yawns,
and ask forgiveness for being so bored.
I, too, am wavering on the edge of sleep,
and ask myself again why I have come
to probe the ruins of this dying cult.
I come bearing the cancer of my doubt
as superstitious suffering women come
to touch the magic hem of a saint's robe.
Yet this has served two centuries of men
as more than superstitious cant; they died
believing simply. Women, satisfied
that this was truth, were racked and burned with them
for empty words we moderns merely chant.
We sing a spiritual as the last song,
and we are moved by a peculiar grace
that settles a new aura on the place.
This simple melody, though sung all wrong,
captures exactly what I think is faith.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
That slaves should suffer in his agony!
That Christian, slave-owning hypocrisy
nevertheless was by these slaves ignored
as they pitied the poor body of Christ!
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble,
that they believe most, who so much have lost.
To be a Christian one must bear a cross.
I think belief is given to the simple
as recompense for what they do not know.
I sit alone, tormented in my heart
by fighting angels, one group black, one white.
The victory is uncertain, but tonight
I'll lie awake again, and try to start
finding the black way back to what we've lost.
*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Marilyn Nelson:
first post, second post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
Monday, July 28, 2025
Monday, July 21, 2025
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu (1931—2021) is a South African theologian who served as Bishop of Johannesburg (1985—1986) and Archbishop of Cape Town (1986—1996); the first black clergyman to hold either position. He is best known for his active fight against apartheid. In 1990 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Tutu and Mandela worked together to establish a multi-racial democracy. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
Archbishop Tutu is the author of An African Prayer Book. It is an anthology which includes prayer poems ranging from early fathers and mothers of the church such as Monica, Augustine, and Clement of Alexandria, to modern writers of the African diasporas. Like the following poem, most of Tutu’s poems are written as prayers.
Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.
Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
Amen
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
Archbishop Tutu is the author of An African Prayer Book. It is an anthology which includes prayer poems ranging from early fathers and mothers of the church such as Monica, Augustine, and Clement of Alexandria, to modern writers of the African diasporas. Like the following poem, most of Tutu’s poems are written as prayers.
Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.
Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
Amen
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
Monday, July 14, 2025
Gregory of Nazianus*
Gregory of Nazianus (c. 320—390) is an early Church Father who championed the doctrine of the Trinity against the heresy of Arianism. Along with Basil the Great, he edited a volume of Origen’s theological and devotional writings known as Philocalia.
Gregory was Archbishop of Constantinople from 380 to 381, and served as president of the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381.
John A. McGuckin in the Preface to The Poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) wrote, “Gregory elevated poetry as one of the most inspired of all ways to seek the truth, and estimated that the real poet, the profound teacher of deep truths to their generation, was the one who had quietly studied, reflected and learned the trade of expressing those truths…” The following was translated by Brian Dunkle, S.J. and is from Poems on Scripture (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012).
Invocation Before the Reading of Scripture
Attend, O all-seeing Father of Christ, to these our petitions.
Be gracious to your servant’s evening song;
for I am one who sets his footstep on the sacred
paths, who knows God to be the only self-generate among the living
and Christ to be the king who wards off ills from mortals.
He who once, with mercy on the dread race of suffering mortals,
willingly altered his form upon the Father’s offer.
Incorruptible God, he became a mortal, in order that by his blood
he might free all who toil from the chains of Tartarus.
Come now and tend to your servant’s soul
with inspired accounts from the book of holiness and purity.
For thus you might gaze on your servants of the truth
proclaiming true life with a voice as high as heaven.
*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Gregory of Nazianus: first post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
Gregory was Archbishop of Constantinople from 380 to 381, and served as president of the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381.
John A. McGuckin in the Preface to The Poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) wrote, “Gregory elevated poetry as one of the most inspired of all ways to seek the truth, and estimated that the real poet, the profound teacher of deep truths to their generation, was the one who had quietly studied, reflected and learned the trade of expressing those truths…” The following was translated by Brian Dunkle, S.J. and is from Poems on Scripture (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012).
Invocation Before the Reading of Scripture
Attend, O all-seeing Father of Christ, to these our petitions.
Be gracious to your servant’s evening song;
for I am one who sets his footstep on the sacred
paths, who knows God to be the only self-generate among the living
and Christ to be the king who wards off ills from mortals.
He who once, with mercy on the dread race of suffering mortals,
willingly altered his form upon the Father’s offer.
Incorruptible God, he became a mortal, in order that by his blood
he might free all who toil from the chains of Tartarus.
Come now and tend to your servant’s soul
with inspired accounts from the book of holiness and purity.
For thus you might gaze on your servants of the truth
proclaiming true life with a voice as high as heaven.
*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Gregory of Nazianus: first post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
Monday, July 7, 2025
Anna Kamieńska*
Anna Kamieńska (1920—1986) is a Polish poet, translator, writer, and literary critic. Her earliest poems were published when she was just 14 in the Warsaw children’s magazine Płomyczek. During the Nazi occupation she taught in underground village schools. Later she became involved in Warsaw’s literary life, including as a book reviewer for the prestigious monthly magazine Creativity.
She has been described in Polish American Journal as “a major Polish writer, and equal to Nobel Prize winners Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz, [who] grew up in the horrors of Nazi occupation and Communism. She wrote 20 collections of poetry. It was after the death of her husband — the poet Jan Śpiewak when she was just 47 — that she embarked on a journey from unbelief through metaphysical wrestlings to faith. This journey may be observed both through her poetry collections, and her two-volume Notebooks.
The following poem is from Astonishments: Selected poems of Anna Kamieńska (Paraclete, 2007) and was translated from Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson.
The Lamp
I write in order to comprehend not to express myself
I don’t grasp anything I’m not ashamed to admit it
sharing this not knowing with a maple leaf
So I turn with questions to words wiser than myself
to things that will endure long after us
I wait to gain wisdom from chance
I expect sense from silence
Perhaps something will suddenly happen
and pulse with hidden truth
like the spirit of the flame in the oil lamp
under which we bowed our heads
when we were very young
and grandmas crossed the bread with a knife
and we believed in everything
So now I yearn for nothing so much
as for that faith
*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Anna Kamieńska: first post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
She has been described in Polish American Journal as “a major Polish writer, and equal to Nobel Prize winners Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz, [who] grew up in the horrors of Nazi occupation and Communism. She wrote 20 collections of poetry. It was after the death of her husband — the poet Jan Śpiewak when she was just 47 — that she embarked on a journey from unbelief through metaphysical wrestlings to faith. This journey may be observed both through her poetry collections, and her two-volume Notebooks.
The following poem is from Astonishments: Selected poems of Anna Kamieńska (Paraclete, 2007) and was translated from Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson.
The Lamp
I write in order to comprehend not to express myself
I don’t grasp anything I’m not ashamed to admit it
sharing this not knowing with a maple leaf
So I turn with questions to words wiser than myself
to things that will endure long after us
I wait to gain wisdom from chance
I expect sense from silence
Perhaps something will suddenly happen
and pulse with hidden truth
like the spirit of the flame in the oil lamp
under which we bowed our heads
when we were very young
and grandmas crossed the bread with a knife
and we believed in everything
So now I yearn for nothing so much
as for that faith
*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Anna Kamieńska: first post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), and three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is forthcoming from Paraclete Press.
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