Poets and Poems: James Sale and "DoorWay"

Several years back, poet James Sale faced a life-threatening illness. Over the course of seven years, he wrote about it – in verse form. And his writing was not only in verse form, but also patterned after Dante’s Divine Comedy. What Sale wrote was a kind of homage to Dante, to be sure, but it far more of his own story and his own creation. He was inspired by the Italian poet, but he didn’t mimic him. 

The first volume, tracking Dante’s Inferno, was Hellward. The second was StairWell (think Purgatorio). And now the trilogy of what Sales has collectively called The English Cantos is complete with DoorWay, which is how Sales has entitled what Dante called Paradiso. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

A Poem to Welcome June: “Sabbaths, 1979 (III)” by Wendell Berry – Kelley Keller t On the Common.

 

A Red, Red Rose – poem by Robert Burns at Every Day Poems.

 

50 States of Generosity: Rhode Island – Sandra Heska King at Tweetspeak Poery.

 

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” poem by William Wordsworth – Rabbit Room Poetry.

James Sale and “HellWard” – Writing an Epic Poem in English

British poet James Sale has a mission. A lifelong poet, he is now turning himself to what is perhaps the most ambitious project of his career. He’s writing an epic poem of heaven and hell that “stands four-square against the meaninglessness of post-modernism.” 

Sale began writing The English Cantos in 2017. The first volume, HellWard, was published in 2019, and his working on the next volume. If “HellWard” sounds something like “The Inferno,” it should. Dante’s The Divine Comedy is the model. In fact, Dante (like Virgil) serves as the guide to the poet embarking on the journey of Hellward. Sales considers Dante’s epic as one of the greatest ever written because of “the profound belief system behind the overt belief system.” The overt belief system is Roman Catholic; the belief system behind it is something broader. It’s no surprise than poet John Milton is an inspiration here.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.