Thank you, Mr. Kunitz, for sharing this beatiful poem and your connection to it. The world needs more spirits like your who capture the wonder of things!
Beautifully read and beautifully commented. I myself read this poem as a schoolboy about 60 years ago and was enormously impressed then. (I actually remember the exact spot on the school grounds where I read it.) Thanks Mr Kunitz for your part in rekindling in me that old enthusiasm for Hopkins and this magnificent and profound poem.
I almost forgot. You were a mentor to Georgia Heard, who I encountered at Teachers College. She inspired me to write poetry, but more important than that: she inspired me to learn poetry and scripture by heart, to perform poetry and scripture. Thank you for your mentorship of her, and know how the chain of sympathy (as Hawthorne calls it) connects one to another.
learning it by heart. thanks to Stanley Kunitz reading it at Dodge Fest once year. Over 15 years later, I still remember the experience. Thank you, Mr. Kunitz!
What a great reading. The music someone else's voice puts to a poem makes all kinds of interesting things that you may have been missing stand out. I also have deeply mystical memories of Widener - the stacks there are a very dramatic environment :)
This is my favorite time and to have it read by someone else was tantalizing thank you I found this fine in the 1950s when I was a student At the State University of Iowa Carol Burch Flinn/visionary artist
Hopkins turned the Greek “rosy fingered dawn” which came from the Greek goddess Aurora into a brown brilliance of dawn in the east, a brightening which is now of or from the Holy Spirit. Other poets also alternatively find God in the absence of light as in “Upon God” by Henry Vaughn, I believe. Walt Whitman ends his Lilacs Elegy for Lincoln with the dim dark of the dusk, but Whitman’s line in Song of Myself where he too sends forth sunlight out of himself in sync with the natural dawn’s sun, or else he would die if he could not, is more of a natural event that Hopkins’ spiritual view looking at it as the Holy Spirit’s brilliant wings, which are not rosy fingered like Aurora’s, but brown turning brighter. The men in Hopkins’ poem don’t seem to notice the grandeur, but Walt in Walt’s poem does, and Walt says that “we also ascend dazzling ” brilliantly like the sun “in the calm and cool of the daybreak.”
God's Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs - Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS ......................................................................................................
Nothing “wounded yet radiant” in GMH’s God’s Grandeur. Radiant? yes but wounded? where? I expect he’s just promoting his own work the nature of which is probably “wounded yet radiant”.
Nature has been wounded by industry: "And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod."
@@arowbee I really should remove my comment. I’m so embarrassed. GMH is one of favorite poets. How could I missed that. At one time I even committed Gods Grandeur to memory, I loved it so much. Well, I’ll atone by visiting Stanley Kunitz’s poetry.
@@eduardodifarnecio2336 Don't remove your comment. The internet needs more examples of people changing their minds after a civil exchange. GMH is my favorite poet and this is one of my favorites of his poems. I'm actually teaching it as part of a job interview in a few hours. I came here while prepping for that. Hopkins is great; every time you read one of his poems you find something new. The thing that jumped out at me this time was the phrase "bent / World" in lines 13 and 14. I've read this poem hundreds of times and always pictured the Holy Ghost bending over the world before brooding, but this time I saw that it was the world that was bent. The double meaning of bent is interesting. A bent world could mean a fallen world filled with crooked people, etc., but it could also be a world bent like an archer's bow, filled with potential energy (i. e. grandeur) that is waiting to spring forth like the morning in line 12.
Thank you, Mr. Kunitz, for sharing this beatiful poem and your connection to it. The world needs more spirits like your who capture the wonder of things!
Listening to people reading these poems is one of the most beautiful experiences anyone can have. Thank you, Robert Pinsky.
Also sung: czcams.com/video/nKPSlqY_NK8/video.html
Beautifully read and beautifully commented. I myself read this poem as a schoolboy about 60 years ago and was enormously impressed then. (I actually remember the exact spot on the school grounds where I read it.) Thanks Mr Kunitz for your part in rekindling in me that old enthusiasm for Hopkins and this magnificent and profound poem.
Hearing Stanley read this poem will inspire me all day.
I almost forgot. You were a mentor to Georgia Heard, who I encountered at Teachers College. She inspired me to write poetry, but more important than that: she inspired me to learn poetry and scripture by heart, to perform poetry and scripture. Thank you for your mentorship of her, and know how the chain of sympathy (as Hawthorne calls it) connects one to another.
A poet's sensitive reading of the poem.
Wonderful.
This poem captures so well the mixture of gratitude and grief and then, a return to gratitude and awe. Thank you.
learning it by heart. thanks to Stanley Kunitz reading it at Dodge Fest once year. Over 15 years later, I still remember the experience. Thank you, Mr. Kunitz!
Thank you Robert. What a beautiful reading.
What a great reading. The music someone else's voice puts to a poem makes all kinds of interesting things that you may have been missing stand out. I also have deeply mystical memories of Widener - the stacks there are a very dramatic environment :)
Beautiful.
This is my favorite time and to have it read by someone else was tantalizing thank you
I found this fine in the 1950s when I was a student At the State University of Iowa
Carol Burch Flinn/visionary artist
Faith renewed. Thank you.
Beautiful. Loved it.
Beautiful, and beautifully read. Try his amazing poem on ageing, The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo. Stunning
Hopkins turned the Greek “rosy fingered dawn” which came from the Greek goddess Aurora into a brown brilliance of dawn in the east, a brightening which is now of or from the Holy Spirit. Other poets also alternatively find God in the absence of light as in “Upon God” by Henry Vaughn, I believe. Walt Whitman ends his Lilacs Elegy for Lincoln with the dim dark of the dusk, but Whitman’s line in Song of Myself where he too sends forth sunlight out of himself in sync with the natural dawn’s sun, or else he would die if he could not, is more of a natural event that Hopkins’ spiritual view looking at it as the Holy Spirit’s brilliant wings, which are not rosy fingered like Aurora’s, but brown turning brighter. The men in Hopkins’ poem don’t seem to notice the grandeur, but Walt in Walt’s poem does, and Walt says that “we also ascend dazzling ” brilliantly like the sun “in the calm and cool of the daybreak.”
just having him reading it is like reading a child a storybook and I am the child. It's so interesting...absolutely beautiful
I love this poem
Concord Hymn read byBill Clinton is my favorite!
Now that was...SOMETHIN!
God's Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
......................................................................................................
Winnie the Pooh got flow
Is this Winnie the Pooh?!
poignant
Nothing “wounded yet radiant” in GMH’s God’s Grandeur. Radiant? yes but wounded? where? I expect he’s just promoting his own work the nature of which is probably “wounded yet radiant”.
Nature has been wounded by industry:
"And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod."
@@arowbee you’re right. I must have been drunk when I posted my comment.
@@eduardodifarnecio2336 🤣
@@arowbee I really should remove my comment. I’m so embarrassed. GMH is one of favorite poets. How could I missed that. At one time I even committed Gods Grandeur to memory, I loved it so much. Well, I’ll atone by visiting Stanley Kunitz’s poetry.
@@eduardodifarnecio2336 Don't remove your comment. The internet needs more examples of people changing their minds after a civil exchange.
GMH is my favorite poet and this is one of my favorites of his poems. I'm actually teaching it as part of a job interview in a few hours. I came here while prepping for that.
Hopkins is great; every time you read one of his poems you find something new. The thing that jumped out at me this time was the phrase "bent / World" in lines 13 and 14. I've read this poem hundreds of times and always pictured the Holy Ghost bending over the world before brooding, but this time I saw that it was the world that was bent.
The double meaning of bent is interesting. A bent world could mean a fallen world filled with crooked people, etc., but it could also be a world bent like an archer's bow, filled with potential energy (i. e. grandeur) that is waiting to spring forth like the morning in line 12.