From “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches” by Mary Oliver: Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk! To put one’s foot into the door of the grass, which is the mystery, which is death as well as life, and not be afraid! To set one’s foot in [...]
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Easter Wings by George Herbert Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore: With Thee O let me rise, As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day Thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age [...]
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When he died in 2006, Stanley Kunitz was eulogized as the most accomplished American poet. Kunitz’s favorite poem was “God’s Grandeur” by the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins. He reads the poem, and explains how he found it, in this video produced by the Favorite Poem Project. (H/T to Jim Campbell for unearthing it.)
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i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth day of life and [...]
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The poet Mary Karr has just published a new book, Lit, in which she talks about her conversion to Catholicism as well her struggle with alcoholism. She mentions in a recent interview that the Spiritual Exercises were an important part of her spiritual awakening. That’s all the excuse I need to mention Karr here, because [...]
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To Live in the Mercy of God by Denise Levertov To lie back under the tallest oldest trees. How far the stems rise, rise before ribs of shelter open! To live in the mercy of God. The complete sentence too adequate, has no give. Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of stony wood beneath lenient moss [...]
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I wasn’t surprised to find out that the poet Billy Collins is a Jesuit alum (Holy Cross ’63). There’s a distinctly Ignatian tone in this quote: “I feel now that my sense of the spiritual is directly connected to my sense of wonder, my ability to be amazed by the fact of my existence in [...]
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I love the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He’s difficult. One critic says that a sign of excellence in a poet is the number of different ways you can read his work. By that measure, Hopkins is a great poet. But Hopkins is worth the effort it takes to read and understand him. Paul Mariani, [...]
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