Help please

Help me out here, blog readers. I am all out of inspiration.

I need some really good poems or short readings (non-biblical) for an Advent service in a few weeks time. I've used up all my best resources over the last few years and need some fresh stuff. Any offers?

And while we're about it, does anyone have a downloadable texxt of R S Thomas's poems Groping and Strange Light?

Comments

Hi Maggie

I have used another R S Thomas poem "The Coming" to good effect in Advent, perhaps its one of your previously used "Best Resources"

The Coming

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. many People
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

[Kathryn]

There's that amazing Edwin Muir poem on The Annunciation which I blogged last year...the first line is "The Angel and the Girl are met"
Will do some more thinking as I go, meanwhile I'm sorry but tho Thomas is on my shelves he's not my puter.

[John]

How about Ray Bradbury's "Christus Apollo"? There's a copy here.

pax et bonum

[Rebecca Snavely]

Hi Maggie -

I heard you speak at the emergent church conference in Kentucky in the spring. I never said thank you -- Thank you! I connected with what you taught, and appreciate your thoughts and recommendations on this blog.

I always default to Madeleine L'engle for language about the mystery of the incarnation. I like the language and the pace of this quote from "Bright Evening Star" for Advent, "Was there a moment, known only to God, when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with all his love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped their hands for joy?"

[John Davies]

Candles and Conifers, just published by Wild Goose this week. A large variety of good stuff in there.

[Serena]

Rebecca - do you know if Madeleine L'engle is familiar with Hildegard von Bingen? Maybe it's just because I'm reading so much of the stuff, but that idea of the "ancient harmonies" is very HvB.

[Stephen Garner]

Would Antipodian material be useful, or are you looking more for things with a northerm hemisphere slant?

[Paul Judson]

I have a copy of a very long poem called 'Is he . . . ?' written by a friend Jenny de Robeck which I have used both in its entirety (it's very long) and in bits around this time of year. I'll e mail a copy.

[Rebecca Snavely]

Serena -

I'm not familiar with Hildegard von Bingen - and usually if L'engle has referenced someone I recall the name. However, I am not in her mind (as I sometimes wish I were) so it's quite possible! I'll have to look up von Bingen.

[mark]

I like this from Pink Floyd. Seems to speak "Advent" to me

Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me?
Hey you, don.t help them to bury the light
Don.t give in without a fight.

Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with you ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I.m coming home.

Hey you, standing in the road
Always doing what you.re told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall,
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?
Hey you, don.t tell me there.s no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.

-- Pink Floyd, The Wall

[maggi]

thanks everyone - some lovely stuff here. Keep 'em coming!!

[Matt]

Bit more edgy, but I also like Muir's the Incarnate one.

[maggi]

matt - I love that poem - used it at King's College on the TV carols a couple of years back but haven't done it here yet. That's a great idea.

[Mark Godson]

From WH Vanstone (Stature of Waiting) which links to the meaning/waiting thread...

"Man is one who, like God, is handed over to the world, to wait upon it, to receive its power of meaning: to be the one upon whom the world bears in all its variety and intensity of meaning: to receive upon his
transforming consciousness no mere photographic imprint of the world but its wonder and terror, its vastness and delicacy, its beauty and squalor, its good
and evil. It is in this dimension - the dimension of meaning - that man receives the world; and as he does so, a figure exposed and waiting, he appears not
diminished or degraded, but a figure of enormous dignity. As he waits in the future, increasingly dependent on systems and machines, on organization and technology, on medical support and social provision, he will in no sense be deprived of his high calling – that of standing beside God and receiving into the transforming mirror of his consciousness what the world really is. Whenever he so stands, in the future as in the past and present, man will be a figure of unique and almost unbelievable dignity."

Worth trying UA Fanthorpe's collection BC:AD, of Christmas poems - I think some of them are a bit trite, but good 'nice' poems that look at things from different angles. I know there's one called 'The Sheepdog', written from the point of view of the shepherds' dog, but I can't find a copy at present. There's also the following, called BC:AD:

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect.
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

More Chirstmassy than adventy, maybe, but still nice for the simplicity of idea!

Worth trying UA Fanthorpe's collection BC:AD, of Christmas poems - I think some of them are a bit trite, but good 'nice' poems that look at things from different angles. I've definitely heard them at carol services and the like in the past, which probably means they're a bit middle of the road, but see what you think... I know there's one called 'The Sheepdog', written from the point of view of the shepherds' dog, but I can't find a copy at present. There's also the following, called BC:AD:

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect.
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

More Chirstmassy than adventy, maybe, but still nice for the simplicity of idea!

[Sarah]

Hello,
I really need to know when 'The Sheepdog' by UA Fanthorpe was written. If anybody knows then your information would be very much appreciated
Thank You

[Beth]

Sarah - it's from her collection "Voices Off" (1984) - see here for a copy of the poem.

[sylvia christie]

Rowan Williams (archbishop) has a good poem called Advent Calendar. Laurie Lee has one called Christmas Landscape. There's always the lovely Betjeman "The bells of waiting Advent ring". George Mackay Brown has "Chrstmas" - very short and vivid. and UA Fanthrop has BC:AD, a sonnet. Our local writers' group is reading them between carols at our Choral Society concert next week - none takes more than 2 mins. max.