INTERESTING SNIPPETS

2020

NUMBER 1 - THE GIFT OF WORDS

with thanks to our secretary, Claire Hutt,  Hopkins Society members have been contributing  to a regular "Gift of Words" shared with other members via our secretary, Claire Hutt ....

1.  Hopkins Society Steering Group member Lance Pierson has contributed a translation exercise, translating a couple of Hopkins' poems into everyday language -"Hopkins in your own words: A valuable exercise" -  see the Resources page 2.1 for the link to the exercise
  

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NUMBER 2

Philip Healey has circulated to the Steering Group the following ..... "My mobile phone, which has a mind of its own (or of some very deep algorithm!), has just brought up a very fine reading of ‘Felix Randal’ in Carol Rumen’s poem of the week (24 August) in the Guardian.  It’s certainly worth reading ....... www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/aug/24/poem-of-the-week-felix-randal-by-gerard-manley-hopkins

NUMBER 3

​the comedian Frank Skinner has posted an analysis of 'The Windhover' on his poetry podcasts - well worth listening to …

planetradio.co.uk/podcasts/frank-skinner-poetry-podcas

NUMBER 4

Hopkins Society Steering Group member Lance Pierson has his own poetry podcasts and his aim is to read the poems and to help them to be heard ..... and he too has his favourite GMH poem on a recent podcast ... this time "Epithalamion" ... getting hold of what the words means is challenging so footnotes are included ... see ......  thepoetrypodcastwithlancepierson.com/
....... there is also the podcast in audio at www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9aS9n2xfnI

NUMBER 5a

Spotted in the Times Jul 25 2020, in the Review section under "my culture fix" an extract by the writer Jimmy McGovern on Hopkins ... reproduced here .....

"The Poem/song that saved me
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Gerard Manley Hopkin's The Windhover is a magnificent sonnet.  It perfectly captures a bird of prey in flight. Many have tried to do it since - Ted Hughes for instance - but have failed to get close.   Hopkins, a Jesuit priest, was a horrible human being, being blind to the plight of poverty-stricken people all around him.  But even a horrible human being can be a great poet."

As you might imagine this generated some discussion from Steering Group members ... one member pointed out that McGovern has written several dramas about RC priests - most recently "Broken" which gave a very depressing picture of a priest in Liverpool and his parish.  The light and hope finally break out in the last episode - but the priest as a little boy writes an essay on "The Windhover".  The priest in charge of the class does not believe he has written it himself and gives him a wallop. The member thinks McGovern's own experience of the church has colored his writing and perhaps judgement.  And yet "The Windhover" must have moved him - as it moved the priest in the drama.  

The Steering Group President wrote to Jimmy McGovern, and although declining the offer of membership of the Society he included in his reply that "Hopkins was a truly great poet .... so clear about a hawk in flight, so blind to people all around him"


NUMBER 5b

Matthew Higgins has forwarded a wonderful short nature video, capturing the Beautiful Australian Nankeen Kestral as it effortlessly soars and miraculously hovers while hunting. On the soundtrack is a recitation 0f "The Windhover" by Hopkins, written in 1877

​Kestrel Windhover - YouTube

NUMBER 6

Another letter in the Times of August 8 2020.....

A letter on seeing shapes in clouds from Graham Chaney in Brighton .....

"No one rivals GMH for elaborate descriptions of clouds..He sometimes noted their changing appearances several times in a single day.  In 1968 standing on a Swiss glacier he noted their "fine shapeless skins of fretted make, full of eyebrows or like linings of curled leaves" while in a poem of 1888 he writes "Cloud-puffball, torn tufts .... in gay-gangs they throng"


2018 NUMBER 1 2018
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Very interesting email sent to the secretary, Claire Hutt Sept 3 2018

'Dear Ms. Hutt,

You may have heard that a Hopkins poem was read at the funeral service for Senator John McCain in Washington D.C. Hearing this prompted me to republish my autobiographical essay about the significance of the poet in my life. Members of the society may be interested in my recollections published here:

https://dispatchesfromtheforme rnewworld.com/2018/09/03/my- love-affair-with-gerard- manley-hopkins/

Sincerely,
Rita Byrne Tull'
Dispatches From the Former New World
https://dispatchesfromtheforme rnewworld.com