Poets and Poems: Matt Duggan and “Woodworm”

A woodworm is the name given to the larvae of a fairly wide array of beetles. It’s also the name applied to a condition of wood when the larvae have been having a meal. What look like holes are more like entrances to small caves, carved into the wood as the larvae eat their way forward. 

But the title of a poetry collection?

I saw the name of British poet Matt Duggan’s latest poetry collection, Woodworm, however, and thought not of wood beetles but of Wormwood, the young student being tutored in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Both thoughts might be relevant, however. Duggan writes about the flaws in ourselves and the surrounding culture that, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly, eat their way through. And, like Lewis’s Wormwood, we are being taught in these 60 poems, not how to promote and capitalize upon the flaws but more to be aware of the havoc the worms of our culture are creating.

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

“The Porpoise” by Mark Haddon

In 1393, a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer named John Gower published Confessio Amantis, the story of Apollonius of Tyre, and thought to be a translation of an ancient Greek text. It’s the story of a prince who visits Antiochus, king of Antioch. Antiochus has offered the hand of his daughter to anyone who can solve a riddle; fail to solve it and you’re put to death. 

The riddle’s solution is that the king is committing incest with his daughter. Apollonius solves it – and is on the run for his life for most of the rest of his life. He has an extraordinary number of adventures, marries the love of his life, she seemingly dies at sea after giving birth, Apollonius goes almost mad with grief – and that’s only the start. Ultimately, the family is reunited – and virtue rewarded.

In 1576, a writer named Lawrence Twine published The Pattern of Painful Adventures, a prose novel based on Gower’s story. William Shakespeare, possibly with the help of a writer, innkeeper, and possible criminal named George Wilkins, wrote and produced a play based on Twine’s retelling of Gower’s story. Shakespeare named his Pericles, Prince of Tyre. It was staged in 1607 or 1608.

Fast forward to 2019. A small plane crashes in northern France; a well-known movie star in the plane gives birth shortly before she dies. Her distraught husband withdraws from social life and raises his daughter in rural England. He falls in love with her, and it leads to incest. The father poses no riddles for would-be suitors to solve, but a suitor shows up, and the girl falls madly in love. The father assumes the role of King Antiochus, sends his right-hand man off to kill the young man, and the game is on.

You’re entering the world of The Porpoise, the latest novel by British author Mark Haddon. He’s not content to writer a contemporary version of Apollonius/Pericles. The Porpoisegoes well beyond that. Haddon retells the original story of Pericles in tandem with the contemporary interpretation, and along with the account of George Wilkins and William Shakespeare. 

You might say the novel is three stories in one, and it is, but it becomes much more than that. Haddon is offering a meditation on myth, writing, legend, the human condition, the act of literary creation, and more. The result is stunning – a gripping account written in the present tense that tells us how we continue to relive ancient myths and legends today. 

Mark Haddon

Haddon knows how to pull the reader into a story. The gripping account of how and why the small plane crashes leaves the reader almost gasping – similar to his description of the collapse of a seaside entertainment pier in his short story “The Pier Falls.” The account is so gripping that you can’t stop reading. When you come up for air, you find yourself in ancient Tyre, Antioch, and Tarsus, and then in early Jacobean London. Gradually it all begins to make sense.

Best known for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Haddon is the author of several novels, young adult novels, and story collections, including The Red House and The Pier Falls. He is also an artist. He blogs under his own name.

The Porpoise is many things, but ultimately it is a novel about how we come to read, understand, and live stories, and how our stories come to be retold again and again.

Related:

My review of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

My review of The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon.

My review of The Red House by Mark Haddon.

My review of Two Stories by Virginia Woolf and Mark Haddon.

My review of A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon.

The words of Anna

After Luke 2:22-38

The old woman, revered

and often feared for the words

which would tumble, rumble

from within, the words anticipating 

what was to come, this old woman

sees the child,

just another child,

just another ceremony,

another ritual,

and she knows Jerusalem

is redeemed, that Israel

is saved, that the ceremony

if purification is turned on its head,

as the child purifies the temple,

purified the priests, purifies the people.

And the old woman,

the prophetess,

is silenced.

Photograph by Paolo Bendandi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

The largest racially-charged riot in American history took place in – of all places and of all times – New York City in July, 1863. Deliberately-fostered rumors about freed slaves taking the jobs of German and Irish immigrants, a new Union Army draft law, and festering resentment about the Civil War merged into violence that took the lives of hundreds. Emerging Civil War has the story.

Rebecca Reynolds at The Rabbit Room might have rolled her eyes when she was advised to read Bono’s song lyrics, but then she did – and discovered Bono was a psalmist.

I think I read too much. The more I read, the more I think our brave new world has totally lost its mind. Now it’s the American Psychological Association telling us that “polyamory” is okay, and it’s even launched a task force to promote “awareness and inclusivity about consensual non-monogamy and diverse expressions of intimate relationships.” In other words, monogamy is passé in our enlightened culture.

I joke with my friend Sandra Heska King about the critters one can find in Florida, and then I read Ian Frazier’s account in Smithsonian Magazine of Burmese pythons destroying the wildlife of the Florida Everglades. We are talking snakes that can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh 200 pounds – in the tens of thousands.

More Good Reads

Faith

When My Children Grow Strong and I Grow Weak – Tim Challies.

The Painful Shortcut to Peace – Sam Van Eman.

Maybe It Was Meant to Be – Zak Schmoll at Entering the Public Square.

Ireland’s Treasure: The Book of Kells – Seth Lewis.

Writing and Literature

The Power of Metaphor – David Gosselin at The Imaginative Conservative.

Rebuilding Jane Austen's Library – Rebecca Rego Barry at Lapham’s Quarterly.

Poetry

Reflection upon Psalm 121 – Christopher Howell at Image Journal.

‘A Stubborn Parable’ by Mark Burrows – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Sloth – James Matthew Wilson at Literary Matters.

Isn’t It Byronic? ‘Don Juan’ at 200 – Michael Caines at The Times Literary Supplement.

For M – Paul Hughes at Poet and Priest.

Culture

Does the “i” in iPhone Stand for “Idol”? – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

US Women’s Soccer and Our Culture of “Tolerance” – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.

American Stuff

George Washington’s “Favorite” Charles Lee – Roy Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

Anointed with Oil: Evangelicals and the Petroleum Industry – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

Storm Clouds: Review of several books on the run-up to the Civil War – Adam Rowe at Claremont Review of Books.

History

Sunday Morning at Auschwitz – Rod Dreher at The American Conservative.

Tulips in the Netherlands

Painting: Girl Reading, oil on canvas by Charles Edward Perugini(1878).

To see the child

After Luke 2:22-38

To see the child, this child,

to see the tiny life like

all tiny lives, yet unlike,

to see the one, this child,

the one promised,

the one revealed,

the one anticipated

like the water quenching

the thirst of the desert,

the one expected since

the biting of the fruit,

this is what I was born for,

to know, to see the child,

this child, this revelation.

We all bear the name

of Simeon.

Photograph by Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Black December" by Scott Hunter

Detective Chief Inspector Brendan Moran of the Thames Valley Police is recovering from a near-fatal automobile accident. He’s still dealing with lingering physical, like falling asleep at inopportune times, temporary paralysis, and even hallucinations that may or may not be dreams. The doctors assure him he will eventually recover. But in the meantime, his police superior would like nothing better than to see Moran retire on disability. The detective is not only a bit unorthodox; he’s also extremely good at his work. For the present, he has to rely on team members to drive him anywhere.

He’s called to an old local Catholic school, one that includes an abbey. A monk has been found murdered in an underground chapel and a priceless relic is missing. At first believed unrelated, a second death is reported – a man is found dead from a knife wound at a nearby hotel. 

Moran’s troubles are limited to his physical injuries from the accident. His alcoholic older brother shows up, asking for a place to sleep for a few nights. The brother hand’s over the key to a “Romanian” he meets in a pub, and a whole group of Romanians take up squatting residence in Moran’s house. They leave only when Moran’s car explodes, the object of a bomb (they also leave quickly). The Irish detective in England discovers that the long arm of the IRA may be involved in the bombing – and his murder case at the school.

Scott Hunter

Black December by Scott Hunter is the first in the “Irish Detective” or DCI Brendan Moran mystery series, and if you’re looking for a novel or a series when action seems to explode on virtually every page, this may be it. Moran finds himself in a race to prevent more deaths, including possibly his own. To succeed, he has to reach back more than 40 years in the school's history.

The series includes Black December, Creatures of Dust, Death Walks Behind You, A Crime for All Seasons(short stories), and Silent as the Dead. In addition to writing his crime fiction, Hunter is an IT consultant and musician. He lives with his family in England.

Black December is a fast-paced, anything-can-happen-and-probably-will story, with a physically and mentally-impaired detective whose brilliant mind is still able to overcome his injuries. It’s a solid introduction to a new crime detection series.

When the Story Emerges from the Words

I’ve been working on a story, and Michelangelo pops into my head.

He has nothing to do with the story. And I’m not writing about art or sculpture on Italy or the Renaissance or anything related to those subjects.

But something happens in the process of writing that story, and it has to do with something Michelangelo said about sculpture.

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it,” he says, “and it it’s the task the sculptor to discover it.”

He follows it up with a slight variation: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved it until I set him free.”

I think the quotes were a bit presumptuous, but it is Michelangelo who says them, so who am I to judge?

And then I have something like a Michelangelo moment.

To continue reading, please see my post at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Akash Patel via Unsplash. Used with permission.