Rubén Darío

Rubén Darío (1867―1916) is a Nicaraguan-born poet known as the father of the Spanish-language literary movement, Modernismo. He began as a child prodigy, who moved to El Salvador and later to Chile, where he published his first book in 1888. In1893, he was appointed Colombia’s Consul to Buenos Aires, and five years after that he became a correspondent in Europe for the Argentinian newspaper La Nación.

Darío was influential on succeeding poets including Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, and Federico Garcia Lorca. According to The Poetry Foundation, “Darío revolutionized poetic structure, stretching lines past conventional stopping places and utilizing wordplay, epithet, and alliteration in innovative ways.”

Although philosophically a Pythagorean dualist, Darío struggled to achieve the balance this implied in light of the Christian faith to which he had been raised. In his poem “Song of Hope” he considers the events of his day in light of scripture:
--------“…Has Antichrist arisen whom John at Patmos saw?
--------Portents are seen and marvels that fill the world with awe,
--------And Christ's return seems pressing, come to fulfill the Law.”
Rubén Darío then submissively says to Christ, expressing his own role in light of this vision:
--------“…My heart shall be an ember and in thy censer lie.”

The following poem is from Songs of Life and Hope, a translation of Cantos de Vida y Esperanza by Will Derusha and Alberto Acereda.

Hope

Jesus, incomparable forgiver of trespasses,
hear me; Sower of wheat, give me the tender
Bread of your hosts; give me, in the face of furious hell,
a lustral grace from rages and lusts.

Tell me this appalling horror of agony
obsessing me, comes only from my heinous guilt,
that upon dying I will find the light of a new day
and then will hear my "Rise up and walk!"

This post was suggested by Matthew White, an Australian Kingdom Poets reader.

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.

Diane Glancy*

Diane Glancy is a poet of mixed heritage. Early in life she chose to be identified, with her father, as a Cherokee Native American. She has written extensively as a novelist, playwright, and nonfiction writer. As a poet she has published twenty titles — including both chapbooks and full-length collections. Glancy has received many awards including a Minnesota Book Award, an American Book Award, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and an Oklahoma Book Award.

In her new collection, The Book of Bearings, she takes on the confusion and conflict implicit in the collision of cultures that happened when Europeans began settling in North America. I am honoured to be the editor of this new collection for Cascade’s Poiema Poetry Series.

Glancy’s poetry has appeared in such journals as American Poetry Review, Image, New England Review, and in the anthology Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

The following poem first appeared in Caliban Online Journal, and is from The Book of Bearings.

St. Bo-gast-ah’s Confession to God in Later Years

All this—the Lord made me understand in writing—
I Chronicles 28:19

It was a daily fog.
Sometimes I cannot get off the floor.
I am a slug that moves across the step
leaving a silver trail.
To know there was a bright light from within.
To know it even in the darkness.

Have mercy on the uprooted.
On the unwanted.
On the made-over to fit somehow.
You reform us, Lord.
You yourself were remade to a man struggling
on the cross.
You were thought odd.
You were dismissed.
In that we are one.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Diane Glancy: first post.

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Salvatore Quasimodo

Salvatore Quasimodo (1901—1968) is an Italian poet of Sicilian heritage. In the late 1930s he dedicated himself entirely to writing, and although he was opposed to fascism he did not participate in the resistance to the German occupation during WWII. One of his major projects during this time was a translation of the Gospel of John. In 1945 he became a member of the Italian Communist Party.

The range of his translation work is broad, including Greek Tragedies, Shakespearian plays, and the 20th century poetry of E.E. Cummings and Pablo Neruda. His own poetry became increasingly influential. In the 1950s he received many awards, including the 1959 Nobel Prize in Literature. Toward the end of his life he travelled through Europe and to the United States for readings and lectures.

The following poems were translated by Jack Bevan

Day Stoops

You find me forsaken, Lord,
in your day
and have no grace
locked from all light.

Without you I go in dread,
lost road of love,
and have no grace,
fearful even to confess,
so my wishes are barren.

I have loved you, fought you;
day stoops
and I gather shades from the skies;
how sad my heart
of flesh.

Amen
For Sunday in Albis

You have not betrayed me, Lord:
I am the first-born
of every grief.

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, was born in Italy, and grew up in Montreal, Baltimore, and Toronto. His early poetry was significantly influenced by Pablo Neruda. He became an Augustinian Brother in 1984, and was ordained in 1990; he stepped back from direct involvement with literary pursuits, for a time, and served as a friar with a parish in Brampton, Ontario. Di Cicco has published well over a dozen books of poetry including his 2009 collection Names of Blessing. From 2004 to 2009 he served as Toronto's second Poet Laureate, and currently teaches at the University of Toronto.

I selected one of his poems to be the 2009 poetry winner at the Canadian Church Press Awards. The following poem is from the anthology Poetry As Liturgy which was edited by Margo Swiss for the St. Thomas Poetry Series (2007).

from Poetry and Liturgy

God is a musician too, and all mediums are
arbitrary to Him, a blind man tapping with a cane
is tapping the poem of His prayer, for it is only the sentiment
that means anything to God; not the medium, it
is like water; if it will not flow here, it will flow there.
What matters to God is the flow of sentiment;
He does not know what to do with art forms; so that
artists go blind, and musicians go deaf —
but the sentiment goes on; and it is the poem of His hymn;
everything sings, even without song.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Pier Giorgio Di Cicco: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His new poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Gabriela Mistral

Chilean poet, Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957) was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945). Her work is significantly influenced by her faith — with death and rebirth being important themes. She was an early encourager of the young, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda.

In 1909, the man she loved, Romelio Ureta, committed suicide — an event which significantly impacted her early poetry. Her second collection Desolación (1922), which brought her international attention, is primarily about Christian faith and death.

She lived outside of Chile for many years — including in Mexico, France, Italy and the United States — serving as a consul in several European, Latin American and US cities. American poet Langston Hughes translated several of her poems, which appeared shortly after her death.

Decalogue Of The Artist

I. You shall love beauty, which is the shadow of God
over the Universe.

II. There is no godless art. Although you love not the
Creator, you shall bear witness to Him creating His likeness.

III. You shall create beauty not to excite the senses
but to give sustenance to the soul.

IV. You shall never use beauty as a pretext for luxury
and vanity but as a spiritual devotion.

V. You shall not seek beauty at carnival or fair
or offer your work there, for beauty is virginal
and is not to be found at carnival or fair.

VI. Beauty shall rise from your heart in song,
and you shall be the first to be purified.

VII. The beauty you create shall be known
as compassion and shall console the hearts of men.

VIII. You shall bring forth your work as a mother
brings forth her child: out of the blood of your heart.

IX. Beauty shall not be an opiate that puts you
to sleep but a strong wine that fires you to action,
for if you fail to be a true man or a true woman,
you will fail to be an artist.

X. Each act of creation shall leave you humble,
for it is never as great as your dream and always
inferior to that most marvellous dream of God
which is Nature.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca