[personal profile] rj_anderson
Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest’s creases; in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed ' dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks ' treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd, ' nature’s bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest ' to her, her clearest-selvèd spark
Man, how fast his firedint, ' his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig ' nation! Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, ' death blots black out; nor mark
Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time ' beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart’s-clarion! Away grief’s gasping, ' joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. ' Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; ' world’s wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, ' since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.


-- Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-89

***

I am, in general, not very good at appreciating poetry. I love beautiful language, but I'm also an impatient reader; I read very quickly, and I want to catch my meaning on the fly, not have to tease it out by lingering on every sentence. However, there are a few poets that get through to me more often than not, and Hopkins is one of them. (The others, for the record, are Donne, Herbert, and Erin Noteboom Bow.)

There's something so fantastically sensuous and vivid about Hopkins: he writes like a synaesthete (I wonder if he was?). And lines like "sheer off, disseveral, a star... but vastness blurs and time beats level" send shivers right through me, even when I'm not entirely sure what he means by it. But he gets something in his poetry that few religious writers in my experience really have -- the wild, uncontainable, passionate, burning glory of God. His poetry always makes me think back to my favorite parts of Isaiah and Ezekiel, where the prophet witnesses "the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God" and is completely thunderstruck, jelly-kneed, down on his face in awe because it's so huge and alien and overwhelming. There's nothing in science fiction or fantasy to compare to a scene like that; and yet some of my favorite SF&F has moments that approach or evoke it.

This is rough and random because I've had a long day, but I hope you get some idea of what I'm trying to say...?

Date: 2009-04-13 02:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] erinbow.livejournal.com
However, there are a few poets that get through to me more often than not, and Hopkins is one of them. (The others, for the record, are Donne, Herbert, and Erin Noteboom Bow.)

Holy yikes those are big shoes to fill. Sometime you should allow me to lend you a book or two; I know other poets you might like. Or at least other poems. Hirshfield's "The Envoy." (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176484) Dickey's "Heaven of the Animals." (http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=171425) Mary Oliver's "I Found A Dead Fox." Many more.

I love Hopkins too, though this poem is so densely worked that it pushes me back a little. Simple-minded as I am I like "Pied Beauty" best. And some of the terrible sonnets, for other reasons.

Date: 2009-04-13 03:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com
One thing I really hate is saccharine, hallmark-y* religious poetry and poets who take the position that they're saying something so important that they ought to be given a pass on quality. To my mind, the more important the message, the more deserving it is of a worthy medium. (Within constraints of availability. One example of architecture that nearly had me in tears is San Xavier del Bac, south of Tucson. When you look around the 16th c (?I think) adobe church, it's plain that the missionaries who build it were familiar with grand cathedrals back home - and not having stained glass available, they replicated the same sorts of images in fresco. When they couldn't praise God in glass and granite they praised him in mud, and the result is beautiful. )

Not only do Donne and Hopkins glorify God, they have much more chance of making their point to someone (like me) who isn't of their creed.

*I should really quit using Hallmark as a comparison on opprobium for poetry. At least *their* stuff scans.

Date: 2009-04-13 04:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] izhilzha.livejournal.com
I love Hopkins as well, for all the reasons you name above, though I don't believe I'd read this one! I do know I've heard the last couple of lines quoted somewhere, and now it's going to drive me crazy trying to figure out where....

Date: 2009-04-13 07:25 am (UTC)
tree_and_leaf: Harriet Vane writing, caption edit edit panic edit research edite WRITE. (writing)
From: [personal profile] tree_and_leaf
Sayers? Peter thinks about them during the funeral in "The Nine Tailors".

Date: 2009-04-13 07:24 am (UTC)
tree_and_leaf: Watercolour of barn owl perched on post. (Default)
From: [personal profile] tree_and_leaf
Fr Gerard is Win. I think my favourite's "The Windhover", it's both a beautifully observed picture of a kestrel, and a fine religious poem. Though "The World is Charged with the Glory of God" is pretty good, too.

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