Tavurvur, Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. 2014
(Photo krb)
I am finding, later in life, that I am learning a great deal from poetry. I probably didn't have the patience to consider properly what the poet had to say. These days I am being introduced to new ideas, new ways of thinking about the world and life through the poems I am reading and occasionally to old ideas reframed.
During 2023 I read the collection curated by Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury and Poet Priest, "A Century of Poetry", published in 2022 by SPCK. Williams' commentary on the poems that he selected is insightful. His comments also give insights into his thinking about the religious journey.
I also completed the marvellous collection, 'Selected Poems', by the great Welsh Poet Priest, R S Thomas. Thomas was a Welsh Nationalist and non-conformist Anglican Priest. This collection was republished many times by Penguin but finally in 2004 after Thomas's death. So much of his work resonates with me and many others deeply. I can't recommend these two collections enough.
Recently, I restarted the collection, "Love is Strong as Death" curated by the great Australian singer and song writer Paul Kelly also published by Penguin in 2019. In this collection Kelly has gathered an idiosyncratic collection of poetry without commentary from around the world and over many centuries. It is a brilliant collection that has introduced me to many new poets whose works I had not previously encountered.
The poem which recently stopped me in my tracks was a 1932 poem by the German playwright and poet Bertold Brecht, "In Praise of Doubt". The poem is a hymn to doubt and in a few short stanzas captures the whole essence of doubt.
The climactic verse of the poem reads:
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