Friday Links, March 25, 2025 Feast of the Annuciation

+ Joseph Pierce on the mystery of suffering inspired by a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

+ On the persistence of “Expansive Poetry’—with the history of the movement.

+ Interview with Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and playwright, about his plays.

Death on Drum: Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Mystery of Suffering

Father Michael Rennier, Dappled Things web editor and contributor, suggests this link to a [terrific] Lenten mediation by Joseph Pierce on the mystery of suffering, inspired by a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

“One of the most profound meditations on the mystery of suffering is given by the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his marvelous tour de force, “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” A Jesuit priest, as well as being possibly the finest poet of the Victorian age, Hopkins was prompted to write the poem after reading the report of a shipwreck off the coast of England in December 1875. The poem is dedicated “to the happy memory of five Franciscan nuns, exiles by the Falck Laws, drowned between midnight and morning of December 7.”

Illustration of the wreck of the SS Deutschland, from the 1887 book, ‘The Sea: its stirring story of adventure, peril & heroism’ (photo: Flickr / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)

“To Crawl Under the Earth”: The Persistence of Expansive Poetry

Ryan Wilson, DT contributor, poet, translator, author of How to Think Like a Poet (Wiseblood, 2019) writes, “In discussing the legacy of ‘Expansive’ poetry, Brian Brodeur provides close readings of David Mason's ‘The Country I Remember,’ Marilyn Nelson's ‘A Wreath for Emmett Till,’ and my own ‘L'Estraneo,’ first published in Dappled Things, circa 2016.”

The essay, which begins with a helpful summary of the history and goals of “Expansive Poetry,” is at “The Hopkins Review.”

Holding It All Together: How Faith and Literature Respond to a Fragmented World

Katy Carl, DT editor in chief, recommends this interview at Church Life Journal of Rowan Williams. Williams is a poet and critic, but he is perhaps best known as the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Gregory Wolf interviews Williams about his play Shakeshafte and two other plays, The Flat Roof of the World and Lazarus.