Her Bright Merits: Essays Honoring Ingrid J. Peterson, O.S.F.

Plunging into Mystery

Plunging into Mystery regis J. ArMstrong, o.F.M. CAP. “Glory be to God for dappled things…”1 Anesthetized faces appear on those who may never have heard of Gerard Manley Hopkins or of his Pied Beauty. “… for dappled things?” They grow impassive or narcoleptic. Not even a glimmer of hope that they might be thinking: wouldn’t it be easier to call them things of many colors? Had they ever heard the word “dappled” or, for that matter, “pied?” “All things counter, original, spare, strange…”? In an age of iPods , Blackberry’s, Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia, teachers of English literature have to be admired, even more so those who attempt to cultivate in their students a love of poetry.2 At the beginning of National Poetry Month, April 2009, The Christian Science Monitor columnist Danny Heitman observed: The assumption that we need a month of awarenessraising for poetry suggests just how marginal poetry has become in contemporary national life. Poetry rarely makes it on the bestseller list, can be hard to find in bookstores, and no longer creates celebrities on the order of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Rob1 Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty,” in Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Selected with Introduction and Notes by W.H. Gardner . (London: Penkins Books, 1988), 30. 2 For a insightful commentary on this phenomenon, see: Mark Bauerlein , “Generation Text,” America 201 (October 12, 2009): 20-21. REGIS ARMSTRONG 208 ert Frost. Few people seem to care about poetry very much anymore.”3 Academic turned culture critic Camille Paglia sees a connection between modern progress in the means of communication and in the simultaneous decline in their quality of achievement. “The Web,” she suggests, “has increased verbal fluency but not quality, at least in its rushed, patchy genres of e-mail and blogs. Good writing comes from good reading.”4 The eighteenth-century classic response of Samuel Johnson to James Boswell’s question “What is poetry?” may shed some light on this phenomenon. “It is much easier to say what it is not,” Johnson replied. “We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.”5 Like so many works of art, poetry eludes definition. Therein, however, may be the clue. There is a mysterious, enigmatic dimension to poetry, one that points beyond itself to what it celebrates. In this highly scientific age of analyzing, computerizing, or synthesizing , the mysterious becomes a challenge to be defined and conquered. Hence playwright Christopher Fry once wrote of poetry as “… the language in which man explores his own amazement … says heaven and earth in one word … speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time.”6 Such an operative description may help to explain its decline as it prompts questions about the lack of contemporary human amazement, limited horizons, and diminished attention spans. All of which adds to the conundrum of the contemporary teacher who faces students accustomed to instant communication , scientific explanations, and technical expertise. If the challenge of the poet and of poetry is to show readers that life is perpetually fascinating, wonderful, new, and constant3 Danny Heitman, “We Should Share Lincoln's Love for Poetry,” Opinion , Christian Science Monitor, April 1, 2009. 4 Camille Paglia, Break, Blow, Burn (New York: Random House, 2006), xvi. 5 James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 5 (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 38. 6 Christopher Fry, The Listener, 1950.As quoted by Arnold P. Hinchliffe, Modern Verse Drama (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1977), 53. Plunging into Mystery 209 ly in need of reappraisal, it is also to stop them from taking things for granted. Human beings have the tendency to dismiss things when they become used to them; they fail to appreciate their subtleties or complexities. Emily Dickinson’s comment is very apropos in this regard: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”7 Poetry is, therefore, mysterious and wonderful because it is concerned with the mysteries and wonders of human perception, and of human joys and sorrows, beliefs and insights, struggles, disappointments , and successes. It is not mysterious or wonderful in itself. Poetry...