Poetry

Review: Word Made Fresh

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image for "Word Made Fresh" by Abram Van Engen

Word Made Fresh, Abram Van Engen, foreword by Shane McCrae. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (ISBN: 9780802883605) 2024.

Summary: An invitation to delight in poetry while discovering how form and language help make meaning that may enrich our lives.

A recent survey found only twelve percent of Americans had read poetry in the past year. I wonder if many are like friends of my who are put off by one or both of two things. Firstly, they find poetry confusing or obscure. Secondly, they don’t know where to start. By contrast, Abram Van Engen believes poetry is for all of us, an invitation to pay attention, to delight, and reflect. For Christians, he goes further. Poetry may be found in much of scripture, most notably in the Psalms. They both disclose God to us and give us language to disclose ourselves to God at all the turns of life. Van Engen believes poetry is for you and he sets out in this book to show how you may enjoy it and find your life enriched by it.

He keeps it uncomplicated. He invites us to just pick up a book of poetry and begin reading until something catches us. Don’t worry about meaning to start with, just notice what caught our attention, and why, in our lives, that might be. Initially, he invites us to read for pleasure, and at the beginning of the book, shares a number of poems. If we like them, he invites us to pay more attention, and if not, to move on.

For example, in one chapter, he considers poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins (sonnet), William Carlos Williams (three four line verses), Gwendolyn Brooks, Denise Levertov (free verse), Lucille Clifton, Luci Shaw, Scott Cairns, Mary Karr, Richard Wilbur, James Weldon Johnson, John Donne (sonnet), Countee Cullen (also sonnet), and Robert Hadyn. By doing so, Van Engen offers us his own curated anthology, offering us the change to discover what we like, while offering very introductory comments.

While he discourages starting by asking what a poem means, he does encourage us to ask questions of the poems that catch our attention, For example, “Why was I struck by this poem?” What about this poem made us stop? “What gave us pause or pleasure? Was it the sound of the poem? Was it a certain memory the poem invoked or revived?” He then takes us through a very short poem (“This Is Just to Say”) by William Carlos Williams, considered previously and notices how each stanza is a literal room, adding to what has come before about eating plums another has set aside in the icebox. He asks questions about the structure, the line breaks, and the repeated “so.”

Before going further into technical matters, he invites us to think of poetry like a friendship. Like a friendship, poems travel with us through life. Along they way, they show us different things as we change and grow. Then Van Engen turns to form. He considers different forms and how form, rhyme schemes, and content interact. Another practice he encourages is erasing. For example, we erase all but the verbs. Or we isolate the requests in a prayer.

Then Van Engen explores how poets use words to name, the oblique ways they express truth. And he devotes two chapters on how poetry helps us rejoice with the rejoicing, and weep with the weeping. Poetry offers us language to express how glorious our life in the world can be, and how wretched. Finally, returning to Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” he shows how poems enact life. Van Engen contends that as “the just man justices” so poems poem as we read and experience them.

In recent years, I’ve been on a journey of discovery poetry. Van Engen makes this so approachable, so enjoyable. He introduces us to forms and uses of words and more. Mostly, he invites us to read a lot of poetry, guiding us lightly, asking us questions to help us discover for ourselves the wonder of poetry. And for Christians, he tips us off to a rich vein of devotional material many of us may have neglected. He show us how poetry and the poetry of scripture may enhance and enlarge one another. Read this book if you are in the place of feeling both drawn and daunted by the call of poetry. Read this book with a group, using the group guide provided. I believe you will find that which pleases and enriches you and your friends for the journey.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Poems on Nature

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Poems on Nature" by various poets.

Poems on Nature (Signature Select Classics), various authors. Sterling Publishing Co. (ISBN: 781454944768) 2022.

Summary: A chapbook of several dozen poems by the world’s greatest poets on the natural world, the air, the sea, and the land.

A book I’m reading on poetry right now advises that the best way to get into reading poetry is to read and notice what particularly arrests our attention and gives us pleasure.. So I decided to follow this advice with this delightful chapbook that a local bookstore threw in as an “extra” with my other purchases. Poems on Nature collects several dozen poems from some of the “greats” in poetry. These include Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Christina Rosetti, William Blake, Sara Teasdale, and many others.

The poems are organized around “Air,” “Sea,” and “Land.” I’ll mention one or two in each section that I particularly enjoyed. You’ll probably like different ones, and that is just fine!

Under “Air,” I delighted in revisiting Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Sympathy” with its famous line “I know why the caged bird sings…” I had not encountered John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Robin,” in which he recounts the words of an old Welshwoman explaining how the robin got its red breast. In addition, there are poems from Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Yeats, and others.

“The Sea” poems evoked for me something of the sea’s mysterious character. Christina Rosetti in “By the Sea” asks “Why does the sea moan evermore?” By contrast, Thomas Campion celebrates the empire of Neptune in “A Hymn in Praise of Neptune.” Then Alfred, Lord Tennyson evokes our fears of sea creatures of the deeps in “The Kraken.” I’ve always found thought-provoking the image of the ebbing of “The Sea of Faith” in “Dover Beach.”

Finally, the section on “Land begins with Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.” We all know the opening lines “I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree.” But do you remember her self-deprecating concluding lines: “Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree”? Then Vachel Lindsay speaks for every homeowner in “The Dandelion” that is “rich and haughty.” It scorns the lawn-mower, even when its “yellow heads are cut away.” “By noon you raise a sea of stars / More golden than before.”

Sara Teasdale concludes the collection with “There will come soft rains (War Time).” She describes the coming of spring in a time of war. She concludes with a haunting pair of couplets:

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we are gone.

This should give give us all pause amid our hubristic pretensions.

Poems on Nature is ideal for gifts. The first page even has “to” and “from” lines for inscriptions. The chapbook format makes for easy carrying, more portable than an e-book. It is a great introduction to several dozen great poets without the bulky anthology. I really must thank my local bookseller!

Review: Contemporary Catholic Poetry

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of "Contemporary Catholic Poetry" edited by April Lindner and Ryan Wilson

Contemporary Catholic Poetry: An Anthology, Edited by April Lindner and Ryan Wilson. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640606463), 2024.

Summary: An anthology of works in diverse styles, aesthetics, and forms from 23 Catholic poets born since 1950.

During the time I was savoring the poetry in this work, a friend of mine expressed the desire to read more poetry but didn’t know where to start. I suggested finding anthologies that allow one to sample the works of many poets to find those one likes. And this anthology is a great place to begin.

What is Contemporary Catholic Poetry? The editors define “contemporary” as born after 1950, writing between the mid-1970’s and the present. A “Catholic” is one who was baptized Catholic and has not renounced their faith. It does not have to do with content, which ranges widely over human experience. Nevertheless, the editors note that Catholic poetry may be characterized as having a sacramental view of reality. That is true of this collection. Finally, poetry covers a variety of forms. There is political and personal poetry; performative and meditative poetry.

In all, twenty-three poets appear in this anthology, organized alphabetically by last name with three to eight poems by each writer. The editors introduce each poet with a brief biography. A date appears at the end of each poem indicating when it was first published. Generally the works are shorter. Ned Balbo’s “Hart Island” is a notable exception spanning ten pages. He chronicles the history of this island off New York harbor that served as a prisoner of war camp, prison, “Madhouse, workhouse, women’s hospital.”

I cannot possibly summarize all the poets, even less all the works that appear here. Without intending to slight any, I’ll single out a few that caught my attention. I’ve long been familiar with the name of Dana Gioia, first poet to head the national Endowment for the Arts. But this is my first time to read his poetry, and I bought more of it as a result. In “Interrogations at Noon” he writes, “Just before noon I often hear a voice, / Cool and insistent, whispering in my head. / It is a better man I might have been, / Who chronicles the life I’ve never led.” I felt like he was listening to the voice in my head!

Julia Alvarez’s “Folding My Clothes” writes of the mother who carefully folded her clothes “which she found so much easier to love.” Marie Howe, in “Prayer” writes of all the aspirations and distractions any of us experience who try to pray. “Fontanel”, by April Lindner, a co-editor, is a tender meditation on the “Canvas-thin” “stretch of skin” on a newborn’s head whose skull bones have not yet fused. In “Castizo” by Orlando Ricardo Menes, the poet reflects on his mother’s aspirations that he prove himself of “good stock,” unlike his father, a manual laborer. Instead, he asserts that all our handiwork “is charged with grace.”

I liked Daniel Tobin’s work. “Aftermath” is a spare reflection on 9/11. He likens the ascent of souls to the pervasive ashes visible in the floodlit night. David Yezzi, the last poet in this collection reflects on the triumph of weeds in his garden and words of his grandmother.

In summary, the editors speak of giving this book as a gift, hoping it will be a welcome one. I certainly found it so on many levels. It introduced me to some great poets I hope to read more of. The poems both evoked realities I’ve not experienced and resonated with ones that I have. Finally, like so many great poems, these served as windows offering glimpses of transcendent realities in the commonplaces of life.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Dream Work

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Dream Work" by Mary Oliver

Dream Work, Mary Oliver. Atlantic Monthly Press (ISBN: 9780871130693) 1986.

Summary: Poetry of Mary Oliver running the gamut from dogfish to Dachau, from starfish to Orion, and Robert Schumann to Stanley Kunitz.

It seemed fitting to read a collection of the poetry of Mary Oliver in the month of her birth. Dream Work follows Oliver’s Pulitzer winning American Primitive. Like much of her writing, Oliver’s poetry moves from the commonplaces of the natural world like dogfish, geese, starfish, and marsh hawks to remind us of the transcendent, our evanescent existence and the existential questions that endure.

She juxtaposes tiny dogfish with a cri de coeur “to know / whoever I was, I was / alive / for a little while.” She sees the rising sun over a pond of blazing lilies as “a prayer heard and answered / lavishly, / every morning”. Wild trilliums on the hillside contrast with the lack of tenderness of childhood’s ambiguities and the difficult years.

“Dreams” captures the “Dream Work” of this collection’s title. Dreams are likened to budding flowers with a letter at the center of each that eludes the waking self. “Whispers” describes the elusive “heaven of sensation” from which she finds herself held back. Then in “Members of the Tribe” she lists artists, her tribe, who lived between madness and genius. Yet it is not their unhappiness she cannot forgive but the “hurtling / toward oblivion / on the sharp blades of their exquisite poems, saying: / this is the way.“

“Robert Schumann” exemplifies madness in art, thought of by her every day in his lifelong struggle with madness. Yet there was the brief moment when Clara first came into his life. Because of this poem, I had to look up the story of Schumann, who composed brilliantly between fits of madness. On the other hand, there is “Stanley Kunitz.” Likening his work to a beautiful garden effortlessly blossoming, she now understands the toils behind the beauty.

However, it is often the commonplace that speaks most deeply. For example, in “Landscape” she listens each morning to the mosses and the black oaks around her pond. If she closes her heart to them, she is “as good as dead.” Or an approach of a thunderstorm reminds her of how the normalcy of life may be shattered in an instant.

Some of the poetry is darker. For instance “Rage” describes the sexual abuse of a child in chilling terms (Oliver suffered sexual abuse as a child). In a poem written on the fortieth anniversary of the revealing of the German camps, she struggles with the incongruity of forest scenes, mountains of bodies and Mengele enjoying a gourmet meal.

Yet she cannot end here. Rather, the collection concludes with “The Sunflowers” that invite us into the fields to listen to their stories. Amid ugly realities, Oliver points us to a deeper magic. She cannot always find the words. But there is something to be heard.

Review: Dear Dante

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Dear Dante" by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

Dear Dante, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell. Iron Pen | Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609372), 2024.

Summary: An imagined conversation with Dante responding to the three sections of the Divine Comedy in sonnets and terza rima.

On the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell set herself a goal of reading through the Divine Comedy in three months. As she read, she wrote a series of poetic responses. She engaged Dante in the forms he used, the sonnet and terza rima. In all, she wrote 42 poems: a Prologue, thirteen poems for each of the three sections, and an Epilogue of two poems. A quote introduces each canto to which she is responding.

Commenting on the poems, she writes:

“Some of the poems I wrote endorse and enlarge on Dante’s vision, others challenge it, and still others reject it out of hand. In these poems, I dare to differ with Dante–an intellectual, spiritual, and artistic act that creates a space for encounter with the master poet, acknowledging a tension that isn’t easily resolved” (p. 9).

From Inferno IV she reflects on what Christ would have thought of Dante’s hell and wonders how the Savior who forgave so many sinners could approve eternal punishment. She wonders if Jesus would have grieved the sinners he failed to retrieve.

Inferno XII describes Dante’s encounter with the bloody river. She equates this with anger and reflects on how anger can be both a pleasure and a cage.

In Purgatorio IX, O’Donnell reflects how we cannot go through Hell, Purgatory, or heaven unchanged. And there is no turning back to what we were. For Christ, however, though he knows of Purgatory, he cannot go through it as the sinless one. And Virgil, Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory, cannot join Dante in passing the gates to Heaven. O’Donnell reflects upon the greatness of his sacrifice.

Heaven is not all sublime for Dante. He grasps the folly of humans who do what they are not supposed to do, Yet they look for mercy undeserved. When Beatrice leaves in Paradiso XXXIII, O’Donnell chides him that he is surprised. He forgets the lessons learned in Hell and Purgatory that we never get what we expect.

O’Donnell ends her reflections with “Dante’s Bargain.” a sonnet. She observes: “His tale of exile and his tears, / the lifetime that he spent / composing lines, creating rhymes / to make the perfect poem / have all survived the test of time.”

While Dante’s time differs from ours, O’Donnell introduces us to the magnificence of the Divine Comedy. And she voices the ways it may seem strange to our ears. I never got past Inferno in my own reading of Dante. O’Donnell has served as a kind of Virgil. Perhaps she will get me to the gates of Paradiso. And who will be the Beatrice to meet me there?

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Diary of an Old Soul

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald, Introduction and notes by Timothy Larsen.

Diary of an Old Soul, George MacDonald, with introduction and notes by Timothy Larsen. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514007686), 2024 (originally published in 1880).

Summary: A new edition of MacDonald’s extended devotional poem, with seven line stanzas for each day of the year.

In 1880, George MacDonald, the prolific fantasy writer, published a work he titled A Book of Strife in the Form of a Diary of an Old Soul. He intended the book as a gift to friends, assuming the cost of publication. As historian Timothy Larsen notes in the Introduction, devotional works were common during this time, supplementing daily Bible readings with spiritual reflections. What MacDonald did was write an extended poem broken into 365 seven line stanzas. Opposite the poems, he provided a blank page for the reader to write his or her own reflections, which would become part of the work.

The New Edition

IVP Academic has just published a new edition of this work. Unlike later versions, this edition preserves the interleaving of blank pages with the poem with one to three stanzas on a page with a blank page opposite. Wheaton historian Timothy Larsen, drawing upon the resources of the Marion E. Wade Center, provides an introduction to the life, context, and content of The Diary. He also lightly annotates the work, mainly defining unusual words and giving context for some allusions. I appreciated the unobtrusive character of the notes. They did not distract from the text. The IVP edition is 4.25 x 7 inches in size, with a cloth binding and bookmark ribbon, ideal for devotional use.

The Poem

The original first part of MacDonald’s title gives us a clue to the character of the poem. MacDonald portrays the strife of the soul against sin, spiritual inertia, and the vicissitudes of life, in order to love God as one would desire. This is not for lack of his intimacy with God but because of it. That intimacy is evident in these lines from January 5:

My soul breathes only in thy infinite soul;
I breathe, I think, I love, I live but thee.
Oh breathe, oh think--O Love, live into me;
Unworthy is my life till all divine,
Till thou see in me only what is thine.

The poem does not follow the liturgical year. MacDonald was from a Low Church background. He makes an exception only for Christmas, which he loved. Rather, his poems sometimes follow the circumstances of his own life: the memory of a lost child, the loss of a home due to straitened finances, or even a rainy, gloomy spring.

Given the extended poem nature of the work, consecutive stanzas are often thematically related. The stanzas for August 21-23, for example, focus on our forgetfulness of God. He observes how often our thoughts are upon other things than God. While he recognizes that this reflects his own finitude, he does not want to fall into sin. Rather, he longs to never stray far from God though not always conscious of God.

The verses remind us of God’s utter sufficiency and our utter dependence upon him in every moment, in our living, aging, and dying. This verse, from August 6 is a good example:

O Father, thou art my eternity.
Not on the clasp Of consciousness--on thee
My life depends; and I can well afford
All to forget, so thou remember, Lord.
In thee I rest; in sleep thou dost me fold,
In thee I labour; still in thee, grow old;
And dying, shall I not find in thee, my Life, be bold?

Using The Diary

Unlike my reading for this review, The Diary is best read one stanza a day. That said, be aware of the stanzas before and after. Timothy Larsen suggests his own practice of reading and re-reading each day’s reading. To this I would add turning your reading into prayers. And use the blank pages to crystallize your own thoughts and impressions. Just as in our reading of scripture, some passages will resonate more deeply at a given time. I suspect one may come back to this in another year and connect with a very different set of verses.

Even in my initial read-through, MacDonald caught my attention at numerous points. On December 23, for example, he speaks of the loneliness of God. That’s one I want to think about further! What makes The Diary so good is that MacDonald gives voice to all the seasons of our spiritual journey, not just the exalted times. In doing so, he often provides words for us in the times our own words fail us. What a gift this must have been to his friends!

[I will be interviewing Timothy Larsen, who introduced and annotated this work on July 9, 1 pm ET. If you are interested in listening to the live interview, sign up for the weblink here.]

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.