Like you, Jennifer, I'd pick-out Baxter as a major example.
But depending on how far you want to extend the term, there's maybe a sense
that the Scottish poet D.M.Black could be thought of as religious, at least
in some of his poems.
[There are also bits of, earlier, MacDiarmid's "Drunk Man" (MacDairmid not
being any sort of believer, in Christianity, at least) -- "O wha's the bride
wha carried the bunch ...", and in (even earlier) +Sangshaw+ -- The Bonnie
Broukit Bairn" and "The eemis Stane".]
Have you thought of translations in this area?
(Peter Levi's translations of the Psalms suddenly spring to mind.)
Or the way in which older religious material can be incorporated into
contemporary poems?
(A really trivial example, but years ago I worked a lot of English ubi sunt
stuff into a poem, and also incorporated the lines:
Lord, you called to me
And I nothing answered thee
But "Thole a little, thole yet!"
But "yet and yet" is endless,
And "thole a little" a long way is.
... virtually word-for-word from a medieval lyric, but something I don't
think I could in a month of Sundays [unfortunate cliche in this context]
ever have written in any contemporary voice.)
Robin
<<
From: Jennifer Compton
...
Does any one know of contemporary poets who write on these subjects? That
you admire?
The most recent I can think of is James K. Baxter.
I simply don't see believing poetry being published any more.
Am I looking in the wrong place?
(Not that I am a believer, of course. Well, if I was I would never admit
it.)
|