Matthew E. Henry

Matthew E. Henry (also known as MEH) is a Boston poet and educator. His books include the Colored page (2022, Sundress Publications), Teaching While Black (2020, Main Street Rag) and the chapbook Dust & Ashes (2020, Californios Press). He says his “writing shines a black-light on the bed of education, race, relationships, religion, and everything else you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company.”

He is also the Editor-in-Chief of The Weight Journal, which showcases the best from teen writers, and is an associate poetry editor for Pidgeonholes.

MEH is the first-place winner of the first annual poetry contest from Fare Forward for his poem “Say Jonah was right and grace is wasted.” This win earned him the privilege of judging this year’s contest. I am delighted to say that, through blind judging, he selected my poem “Two Types of Ibeks” as this year’s winner.

The following MEH poem first appeared in New York Quarterly Magazine, and will appear in a forthcoming collection.

Say God is the Tough in the Prison Yard

Say God is the tough in the prison yard
you’ve decided to take out. He’s the one
to help you make a strong name for yourself.
once He rises from bench-pressing twelve times
your sopping-wet weight, you make your move—bump
His stone shoulder, spinning yourself around.
He walks on unfazed. you square up, talk shit
about His momma, His unknown daddy.
you pluck His beard, spit in His face, punch Him
in the chest. slowly, He exhales, locks eyes,
shanks Himself in the side—sharpened toothbrush
sinking to the bristles—then walks away.
stumbling back from blood, you’re forced to wonder
what He would be willing to do to you.

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.

David Lyle Jeffrey

David Lyle Jeffrey is a Canadian-born medievalist and scholar, living in Texas, who served as Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at Baylor University for many years. He has authored numerous books relating to the Bible, history, art, and literature, and was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1996.

Besides serving at Baylor, Jeffrey has taught at numerous other schools including University of Ottawa, University of Rochester, University of Hull (UK), and University of Victoria. He has been a visiting professor for graduate programs at Regent College, The University of Notre Dame, The Institute for Christian Studies (University of Toronto), Peking University, and Adjunct Professor of Art History at Augustine College.

His recent books include In the Beauty of Holiness: Art and the Bible in Western Culture (2017, Eerdmans), and Scripture and the English Poetic Imagination (2019, Baker Academic), both of which consider understandings made possible by works of artistic imagination. He has also written two poetry collections, Translations, and his newest book A Testament of Witness (2022, Resource Publications).

As curator for the poetry for the Crossings Arts Exhibition ― which appeared in anticipation of Easter during March and April, 2022 ― I was pleased to have David Lyle Jeffery contribute a poem. Each poem accompanied a work of visual art, reflecting on the Biblical Stations of the Cross, found at outdoor displays in central Toronto. Here is a video of him reading his poem “Christ Crucified”.

The following poem is from A Testament of Witness.

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

So, a master of Torah, honored by the Council,
Need not apply? But a scoundrel like the tax collector
In your story, appearing contrite for his many sins—
His kind of outcast can inherit? Really, Rabbi,
This is outrageous, a calumny against heaven and Temple.
Who would want to be part of such a kingdom
If riff-raff the likes of that man were let in?
Such as they are poor in spirit for good reasons.

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.

Joshua Sylvester

Joshua Sylvester (1563―1618) is best known for his popular translation of the creation epic Divine Weekes and Workes by the French Huguenot poet Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas. This book influenced many English poets, including John Milton.

This was an ambitious project to undertake, considering that Sylvester ― the son of a clothier in Kent ― had to dedicate his time to trade; he was highly involved with The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London, exporting cloth around the world.

Even though his poetic output was small, he was a popular poet of his day. He received a part-time pension as a poet at the court of Henry Frederick, the Prince of Wales around 1606.The Sacred Workes of that Famous Poet Silvester: Gathered into one volume was published in London in 1620.

The Father

Alpha and Omega, God alone:
Eloi, My God, the Holy-One;
Whose Power is Omnipotence:
Whose Wisdom is Omniscience:
Whose Being is All Sovereign Bliss:
Whose Work Perfection’s Fullness is;
Under All things, not under-cast;
Over All things, not over-placed;
Within All things, not there included;
Without All things, not thence excluded:
Above All, over All things reigning;
Beneath All, All things aye sustaining:
Without All, All containing sole:
Within All, filling full the Whole:
Within All, nowhere comprehended;
Without All, nowhere more extended;
Under, by nothing over-topped:
Over, by nothing under-propped:

Unmoved, Thou movest the World about;
Unplacated, Within it, or Without:
Unchanged, timeless, Time Thou changest:
The unstable, Thou, still stable, rangest;
No outward Force, nor inward Fate,
Can Thy dread Essence alterate:

Today, Tomorrow, yesterday,
With Thee are One, and instant aye;
Aye undivided, ended never:
Today, with Thee, endures forever.

Thou, Father, madest this mighty Ball;
Of nothing thou createdest All,
After the Idea of thy Mind,
Conferring Form to every kind.

Thou wert, Thou art, Thou wilt be ever:
And Thine Elect, rejectest never.

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.

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen*

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen (1919—2004) is one of Portugal’s best-loved writers. She was born in the northern city of Porto, but moved to Lisbon for university and made it her home. In 1964, she was given the Grand Prize of Poetry by the Portuguese Society of Writers, and has since received numerous other honours.

Her early poems, from the 1947 collection Dio do Mar (Day of the Sea), are highly lyrical mood-pieces, reflecting on gardens and seascapes. Poems from this book, and her 1977 collection O Nome das Coisas (The Name of the Things), appear in the bilingual collection The Perfect Hour (2015, Cold Hub Press). Thirty years separates the publication of these Portuguese collections, and so there’s quite a contrast between the two sections. The latter poems are more philosophical, and sometimes political. They come at the end of almost 50 years of repressive governments, and the Carnation Revolution of 1974. Andresen was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1975 representing the Socialist Party.

Although filled with fine poems, The Perfect Hour is not representative of the more than 20 poetry collections Andresen published, but merely brings together translations from two diverse books by a translator who died young. Two earlier books translating Andresen’s poetry into English — Marine Rose (1987, Black Swan) and Log Book (1997, Carcanet) — are also available. She has also had her poetry translated into Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish.

The following poems were translated by Colin Rorrison, with final editing by Margaret Jull Costa, and are from The Perfect Hour.

Like the murmur

Like the murmur of the sea inside a shell
The divine whispers through the universe
Something emerges: a primordial plan

With furious rage

With furious rage I accuse the demagogue
And his capitalism of words

For it should be known that the word is sacred
That from far far away a people have brought it
And placed in it their trusting soul
From far far away since the beginning
Man knew himself through words
And named the stone the flower the water
And everything emerged because he spoke

With furious rage I accuse the demagogue
Who puffs himself up with the aid of words
And out of words makes power and pastime
And as he did with the wheat and the land
He transforms words into money.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen: 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.

Pantycelyn

Pantycelyn (1717―1791) is the bardic name taken by the Welsh poet and hymnist William Williams. He was one of the leaders of the 18th-century Welsh Methodist Revival, and known as “The Sweet Songster” because of his many influential hymns written in the Welsh language. The statue of Pantycelyn pictured may be found in Cardiff City Hall.

Another poetic genre, besides hymn-writing, favoured by William Williams was the elegy; he wrote several elegies in memory of Methodist leaders and other well-known Christians. He also wrote original prose works, and translated others from English.

To English-speakers his best-known hymn is “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah” which is often used on official state occasions including at the funeral of Princess Diana, and at the weddings of both of her sons. Outside of church use, it is commonly referred to as the “Welsh Rugby Hymn,” because it is frequently sung by the crowd at rugby matches in Wales.

The following poem was translated from the Welsh by Tony Conran (who was profiled here two years ago). It is included in the forthcoming anthology To Heaven's Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry, Beginnings to 1800 ― edited by Burl Horniachek.

The Love of God

Always across the distant hills
I’m looking for you yet;
Come, my beloved, it grows late
And my sun has almost set.

Each and every love I had
Turned unfaithful to me at length;
But a sweet sickness has taken me
Of a love of mightier strength.

A love the worldly don’t recognise
For its virtue or its grace,
But it sucks my liking and desire
From every creature’s face.

O make me faithful while I live,
And aimed level at thy praise,
Let no object under the sky
Take away my gaze!

But pull my affections totally
From falsities away
To the one object that keeps faith
And shall for ever stay.

Nothing under the blue air now
Would make me want to live
But only that I’ll know the joys
That the courts of God can give.

Relish and appetite have died
For the flowers of the world that fall:
Only a vanity without ebb
Is running through it all.

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

Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner (1926―2022) is an American novelist and writer of memoir, theology, essays, sermons, and some poetry ― who died this past Monday, August 15th. He was a Presbyterian minister, although he never pastored a church, and a novelist who authored 39 books, including Lion Country (1971), a finalist for the National Book Award, and Godric (1980), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The poet James Merrill was one of his childhood friends, and the novelist John Irving was one of his students.

In the Washington Post, Cecelia Holland wrote of Buechner’s 1987 novel Brendan ― “In our own time, when religion is debased, an electronic game show, an insult to the thirsty soul, Buechner’s novel proves again the power of faith, to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again.”

In April of 2004, at the Festival of Faith & Writing, I heard him speak and read from some of his books, including his novel The Son of Laughter, which is about the life of Jacob. Once the festival was through, my friends and I hadn’t had enough, so we went to hear him preach at Grand Rapids, Michigan’s Central Reformed Church. There he spoke about Thomas’s confession of Christ in John 20. He told us, we have to imagine ourselves into Bible stories, and considering Thomas was known as “The Twin” Buechner said, “I am the other twin ― unless I miss my guess ― and so are you.”

Found

Maybe it’s all utterly meaningless.
Maybe it’s all unutterably meaningful.
If you want to know which,
pay attention to
what it means to be truly human
in a world that half the time
we’re in love with
and half the time
scares the hell out of us…

The unexpected sound of your name on somebody’s lips.
The good dream.
The strange coincidence.
The moment that brings tears to your eyes.
The person who brings life to your life.

Even the smallest events hold the greatest clues.

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 King

Henry King (1592―1669) is one of the poets T.S. Eliot identified as among the metaphysical poets, calling him familiarly Bishop King. King became Bishop of Chichester in 1642, but had his living, his library, and the rectory taken from him by the Parliamentary forces who had ceased power. He was reinstated at Charles II’s restoration in 1660.

Henry King’s father was the influential John King, Bishop of London who died in 1621. Rumours circulated at that time of a deathbed conversion to Catholicism, which Henry refuted in a sermon.

Henry King was friends with such poets as Ben Jonson, Izaak Walton, and John Donne ― eventually serving as Donne’s literary executor. King is primarily known today for “The Exequy,” an elegy written at the death of his first wife in 1624.

A poetry collection Poems, Elegies, Paradoxes, and Sonets, appeared under his name in 1657, although not prepared by him, and containing some poems that are not his. A selection entitled Poems and Psalms was published in 1843. His body is buried in Chichester Cathedral.

A Penitential Hymn

Hearken O God unto a Wretches cries
Who low dejected at thy footstool lies.
Let not the clamour of my heinous sin
Drown my requests, which strive to enter in
At those bright gates, which always open stand
To such as beg remission at thy hand.
Too well I know, if thou in rigour deal
I can not pardon ask, nor yet appeal:
To my hoarse voice, heaven will no audience grant,
But deaf as brass, and hard as adamant
Beat back my words; therefore I bring to thee
A gracious Advocate to plead for me.
What though my leprous soul no Jordan can
Recure, nor floods of the lav'd Ocean
Make clean? yet from my Saviours bleeding side
Two large and medicinable rivers glide.
Lord, wash me where those streams of life abound,
And new Bethesdas flow from every wound.
If I this precious Lather may obtain,
I shall not then despair for any stain;
I need no Gileads balm, nor oil, nor shall
I for the purifying Hyssop call:
My spots will vanish in His purple flood,
And Crimson there turn white, though washed with blood.
See Lord! with broken heart and bended knee,
How I address my humble suit to Thee;
O give that suit admittance to thy ears
Which floats to thee not in my words but tears:
And let my sinful soul this mercy crave
Before I fall into the silent grave.

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.