Words and Wings
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Visby, Sweden 2012
I recently stumbled on the British comedy Rev. and have been appreciating its raw humour and honesty regarding relationships both human-to-human and human-to-God. If that wasn’t enough, it also introduced me to a lovely poem by Louis MacNeice in Season 1 Episode 4. Thank you, Vicar.
This is just a portion of the poem; read a larger section here.
Wow. I found this remarkable. Striking and calming. Illuminating and clouding. Ah poetry. To so simply and succinctly declare such an inspiring directive, without diminishing the weight of the human experience. Thank you, MacNeice.
Visby, Sweden 2012
The feel of the poem, its acknowledgement of everyday things being significant, and the phrase “words and wings” reminded me of one of my favourite poems — Gerard Manley Hopkins‘ Grandeur of God.
A few years ago, Mike Crawford and I created an audio/visual experience of this poem (all audio is his and all visuals are mine).
So many great lines. I love the turn that comes in the second stanza — for all this, nature is never spent; there lives the dearest freshness deep down things. Ah. Hopkins pairs words well (and makes them up when he can’t find one that suits!) — “deep down things” are just three simple words, but strung together and preceded by “dearest freshness” suddenly they become exactly what you didn’t know you definitely meant. Plus, that sighing exclamation of an ending — ah! bright wings. Thank you, Hopkins.
what lines stood out to you?
any other favourite poems by MacNeice or Hopkins?
have you stumbled across a good poem recently?
→Kindle-edition available here: The Complete Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins.←
Wow – I never knew that you two made that video! So, so beautiful.
I’ve been thinking about starting Rev. I’ll have to hear more about why you like it. :)
Yep! :) This is actually version two of the video, which we resurrected a few years ago at JW. There was a different video (with the same audio) that I made eight or nine years ago when I was first learning the basics of editing.
What more do you want to know about Rev?
Mortal FTW.
Oh, yeah! Forgot about that song. Oh, Mortal. :)