Ernesto Cardenal*

Ernesto Cardenal (1925―2020) is a Nicaraguan poet, priest, and political revolutionary. In 1966 Cardenal founded a religious community on Mancarrón Island in Lake Nicaragua. He led literacy and poetry workshops among the peasant farmers and fishermen, who became well known for their paintings and tapestries.

He supported the Sandinista rebels in the 1970s in their opposition to Nicaragua’s dictator Anastasio Somoza, and was forced to flee to Costa Rica in 1977. He later served as Minister of Culture from 1979 to 1987 as part of the new Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

In 1984 he was suspended from the priesthood by the Catholic church, after he had been rebuked in person by Pope John Paul II the previous year. In February of 2019 Pope Francis lifted the ban on Cardenal practising as a priest, saying he was “absolved of all canonical censure”. Ernesto Cardenal died on March 1st of this year.

The following poem is from Apocalypse: And Other Poems (New Directions, 1977), and is translated by Robert Pring-Mill.

Behind the Monastery

Behind the monastery, down the road,
there is a cemetery of worn-out things
where lie smashed china, rusty metal,
cracked pipes and twisted bits of wire,
empty cigarette packs, sawdust,
corrugated iron, old plastic, tires beyond repair:
all waiting for the Resurrection, like ourselves.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Ernesto Cardenal: first post.

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

Jen Stewart Fueston

Jen Stewart Fueston is an American writer and teacher, who lived abroad ― teaching English in Budapest, Lithuania, and Istanbul ― before returning to teach writing at University of Colorado, and to raise a family.

As a poet she has published two chapbooks ― Visitations (2015, Finishing Line), and Latch (2019, River Glass Books). She is also one of the poets featured in the anthology In A Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets. Her first full-length poetry collection Madonna, Complex has just appeared in the Poiema Poetry Series. It was a pleasure working with Jen, both for the anthology and as the editor of her new book.

The following poem first appeared in Rust & Moth and is from Madonna, Complex.

To a Friend, Lonely in the Fall

In fall at least the world doesn’t lie to you
about dying, might even convince you you can
do it beautifully, become the blaze maple
transcendent against blue. The stands

of cottonwood that in summer appeared to be one
tree, unclasp green hands, separate and shiver
bare, remember they’re alone. The light that angles
through the gold is not the kind that fills

the wanting in your core. Still, it can be caught
with words arranged on lines, like bait on hooks,
and fed upon. Because love is not a fullness, it’s an
ache. Because one God I’ve known has loved me most

when He took everything away. The stark tree stripped
knows every name the wind goes by.

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.

Charles Kingsley*

Charles Kingsley (1819—1875) is an Anglican clergyman, poet, and novelist, who was a founding member of the Christian Socialist movement. His novels include Alton Locke (1850), Hypatia (1853), Hereward the Wake (1866) and his children’s fantasy The Water Babies (1863).

Much of his creative output had social or ecclesiastical reform in mind, such as taking on issues of the urban poor, the rural poor, sanitation, public health, and the slave trade in the United States. His poetry collection Andromeda and Other Poems appeared in 1858. He was clearly anti-Catholic, which led to confrontations with John Henry Newman.

In 1859 Kingsley was appointed chaplain to Queen Victoria, and regius professor of modern history at Cambridge in 1860. He also tutored the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) in history.

Easter Week

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices;
Fields and gardens hail the spring;
Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,
While the wild birds build and sing.

You, to whom your Maker granted
Powers to those sweet birds unknown,
Use the craft by God implanted;
Use the reason not your own.
Here, while heaven and earth rejoices,
Each his Easter tribute bring-
Work of fingers, chant of voices,
Like the birds who build and sing.

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

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

William Baer*

William Baer is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and university professor. He is the author of twenty two books, including six poetry collections ― the most recent of which is Love Sonnets (2016, White Violet Press). He has won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize, and the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. Baer is a champion of the New Formalism, having edited several poetry anthologies highlighting metrical poetry, and he founded the journal The Formalist. He is also the founding director of the Richard Wilbur Poetry Series.

William Baer has taught creative writing, cinema, and world cultures at the University of Evansville, in Indiana.

The following poem first appeared in Louisiana English Journal, and is from his collection Psalter.

Gethsemani

--------------------(Luke 22:44)

This is the bloody chalice of agony
borne of what’s to come. Which catches his breath
with wracking fears of what will come to be:
the whips, the thorns, the crucifixion and death.
It is an agony borne of sacrifice:
taking upon himself, in this lonely place,
every single evil, sin, and vice,
redeeming the entire human race.
It is an agony borne of the dreadful fact
that despite his efforts from now to Pentecost,
not all the world will properly react,
and many will still reject him and be lost.
And so, his blood, like sweat, without a sound,
Seeps through his flesh and trickles to the ground.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about William Baer: first post.

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

Malcolm Guite*

Malcolm Guite teaches at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, and is chaplain at Girton College, Cambridge. He is a well-respected Christian poet and scholar ― having written critical pieces such as Mariner: A Theological Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2018, IVP Academic), edited poetry anthologies, and had several collections of his own work published. His newest poetry book is After Prayer: New Sonnets and Other Poems (2019, Canterbury).

He has also collaborated with artists in other genres ― particularly inspiring Canadians such as singer Steve Bell (CD Keening For the Dawn), and visual artist Faye Hall who created 63 images illuminating 63 lines of his poetry for the book Seven Whole Days (2017, Castle Quay Books).

The following link presents Malcolm reading his poem “As If” , augmented with a visual climb along vines, through a fruit tree, and into an atrium at Regent College where Guite was the featured speaker for the 2019 Laing Lectures. His topic being: Imagining the Kingdom.

The following poem is from his collection Sounding the Seasons.

A Sonnet for Palm Sunday

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The Saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus, come
Break my resistance and make me your home.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the third Kingdom Poets post about Malcolm Guite: first post, second post.

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

Veniamin Blazhenny

Veniamin Blazhenny (1921―1999) is a Russian-language poet who was born in a small Jewish village in Belarus. His literary pseudonym, "Blazhenny" is said to suggest both “Fool for Christ” and "Blessed". He corresponded with Boris Pasternak, sending him some of his early poetry ― although his poems remained unpublished until the late 1980s, due to censorship and the limited publishing options in the Soviet Union. To add injury to this insult, he was incarcerated in a Soviet psychiatric institution because he had the “delusion” that he was a poet. His first book did not appear until 1990.

He referred to his poetry as his “letters to God” in which he would often cry out or rage at him; “It always seemed to me that the Lord was somewhere nearby ― Here I will hail him with an excited voice.”

In 2017, Artur Klinau ― a significant Belarusian artist, writer and editor ― said in an interview, “The rediscovery of [Blazhenny] influenced the development of poetry in our country.”

The Soul Waking Up

The soul, waking up, will not recognize her house,
The darling earthly shelter.
She will wonder, forced by her destiny...
Why would she need a home when she is a soul?

And moving through the path of no return,
Through the vast expanses of the heavenly track,
The soul will take with her my earthly name
And my immense sorrows.

No, she will not take my every trouble,
But only the unbearable path,
Where step by step I prayed to God,
And step by step I struggled with my earthly limits.

A mysterious light will be spilled
At the turning point of time,
But the timeless chain [of spirit] will not be broken
Neither in this pitiful world, nor in the other.

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.

Susan Cowger

Susan Cowger is a poet living in Washington State, and one of the poets featured in the recent anthology In A Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets (2019, Poiema Poetry Series). She has been contributing to poetry for years ― releasing her chapbook Scarab Hiding in 2006. She is a founder and former editor of Rock & Sling. which is now a publication of Whitworth University.

I first met Susan, and her friend the poet Laurie Klein, at the Festival of Faith & Writing in Michigan, back when they were the face of Rock & Sling. This post celebrates the release of Susan Cowger’s debut poetry collection Slender Warble (2020, Poiema/Cascade). I am pleased to have been able to work with Susan Cowger to edit this collection.

The following poem is from Slender Warble.

A Cry Too Soft to Hear

O Lord if forever is now
contained in this skin I wonder

what will happen to the place I scraped raw
ragged furrows scabbing over the pain

the flesh injured beyond bruise
a cataclysm designed to draw you

into being
something like protector

savior of a wound I created
as if I could believe you would come and love

what I hate

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Susan Cowger: second post.

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