With this week’s post on lost works, I thought we could spend a little more time meditating on the mystery of failure with Gerard Manley Hopkins. During a retreat in 1883, he wrote this about his own poetry: …in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions, not to preserve … More Hopkins Praying about His Own Poetry
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief- Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old ánvil wínce and síng– Then lull, […]
Look. Ginsberg’s wandering “off down empty corridors / in search of a toilet.” His beard, his clothes, his speech are wild. Stand a moment and catch glimpses of his glimpses. But don’t look him in the eye; there’s a mystic fire gleaming there, and if you catch it, you’ll be like him. Hopkins is his … More 5 Poetic, and 1 Novelized, Failures Part 2
What is a poet? There are the laureates recognized by the crown. The few who gather a community or a following around them. Or at least those who have been published. But what about the poets who had nothing? What about the opium addicts, the unpublished, and the unread? What about all those musty manuscripts … More 5 Poetic Failures Part 1
‘No Worst’ No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief- Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old ánvil wínce and síng– Then lull, … More A Retreat with Hopkins: Good Friday
Any criticism at all which depresses you to the extent that you feel you cannot ever write anything worth anything is from the Devil and to subject yourself to it is for you an occasion of sin. In you the talent is there and you are expected to use it. Whether the work itself is … More Writing Tip from Flannery O’Connor
