Ode to St. Cecilia

The 22nd of November is the feast day of St. Cecilia, Christian Martyr and Patron Saint of music. A few years ago I was commissioned by JAC Redford the LA-based composer and orchestrater, to write an Ode to St. Cecilia for a new piece of music he has in turn been commissioned to write, which had its premiere in LA in 2013.

I published the Ode myself this year in my new collection Parable and Paradox and here, for this year’s St. Cecilia’s day is the text of my ode and a recording of my reading of it. In the recording I also talk a little about the inspiration and how it came to be written. I hope you enjoy it. Margot Krebs Neale has contributed the beautiful image which follows the poem As usual you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button.

Ode to St. Cecilia

You rested briefly here Cecilia

In this good ground, the Roman catacomb:

Its rounded vaults are rich with sudden sound

As pilgrims hymn you through the darkened air.

For you made music in your martyrdom,

Transposed the passion of your wedding night

To angel-given garlands, wreathed in light.

In all your three days dying you made room

For beautiful abundance, gifts and giving,

Your death was blessing and your passing praise,

As you gave way to grace,

Like music that still lives within its dying

And gives in giving place.

 

Cecilia, give way to grace again,

Transmute it into music for us all:

Music to stir and call the sleeping soul,

And set a counterpoint to all our pain,

To bless our senses in their very essence

And undergird our sorrow in good ground.

Music to summon undeserved abundance,

Unlooked for overbrimming, rich and strong,

The unexpected plenitude of sound

Becoming song.

Image by Margot Krebs Neale

Ode to St. Cecilia

The 22nd of November is the feast day of St. Cecilia, Christian Martyr and Patron Saint of music. A few years ago I was commissioned by JAC Redford the LA-based composer and orchestrater, to write an Ode to St. Cecilia for a new piece of music he has in turn been commissioned to write, which had its premiere in LA in 2013.

I published the Ode myself this year in my new collection Songs and Sonnets and here, for this year’s St. Cecilia’s day is the text of my ode and a recording of my reading of it. In the recording I also talk a little about the inspiration and how it came to be written. I hope you enjoy it. Margot Krebs Neale has contributed the beautiful image which follows the poem As usual you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button.

Ode to St. Cecilia

You rested briefly here Cecilia

In this good ground, the Roman catacomb:

Its rounded vaults are rich with sudden sound

As pilgrims hymn you through the darkened air.

For you made music in your martyrdom,

Transposed the passion of your wedding night

To angel-given garlands, wreathed in light.

In all your three days dying you made room

For beautiful abundance, gifts and giving,

Your death was blessing and your passing praise,

As you gave way to grace,

Like music that still lives within its dying

And gives in giving place.

 

Cecilia, give way to grace again,

Transmute it into music for us all:

Music to stir and call the sleeping soul,

And set a counterpoint to all our pain,

To bless our senses in their very essence

And undergird our sorrow in good ground.

Music to summon undeserved abundance,

Unlooked for overbrimming, rich and strong,

The unexpected plenitude of sound

Becoming song.

Image by Margot Krebs Neale

Parable and Paradox: He who has ears to hear…

Christ the Saviour St. Catherine’s monastery Mount Sinai

I am presently working on a new collection of sonnets about the sayings of Jesus to be called ‘Parable and Paradox‘, which will come out with Canterbury Press next year. The sequence will consist on a series of reflections on, wrestlings with and responses to the sayings of Jesus, voicing, I hope, the wide range of our responses to his teaching from thrilling recognition to baffled amazement, from the urge to follow to the fear of challenge, from wary evasion to life-changing engagement. Parable and Paradox is also the title of a series of sermons I am giving in Girton College Chapel this term which introduce both some of the sayings and some of the sonnets. I am going to post both the sonnets and the sermons on this blog over the coming weeks and I begin with the opening sonnet/sermon which addresses the problem of how we open our ears to hear Jesus in the first place. First I will give you the sonnet which is a response to Matthew 13: verse 9: ‘He who has ears to hear, let hm hear’ and then I will give you a link to a recording of the sermon, along with the references for the Bible texts in that service. If you are in Cambridge you are welcome to come up to Girton and join us for the services and sermons which take place every Sunday evening at 5:30pm during term time. The full term card with all details cam be viewed, or downloaded as a PDF here

As usual you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or on the ‘play’ button

 

‘He who has ears to hear let him hear’

 

How hard to hear the things I think I know,

To peel aside the thin familiar film

That wraps and seals your secret just below:

An undiscovered good, a hidden realm,

A kingdom of reversal, where the poor

Are rich in blessing and the tragic rich

Still struggle, trapped in trappings at the door

They never opened, Life just out of reach…

 

Open the door for me and take me there.

Love, take my hand and lead me like the blind,

Unbandage me, unwrap me from my fear,

Open my eyes, my heart, my soul, my mind.

I struggle with these grave clothes, this dark earth,

But you are calling ‘Lazarus come forth!’

 

You can listen to the sermon that includes this sonnet from this page

The texts for the sermon and sonnet: Psalm: 49:1-12
Old Testament Reading: Ezekiel 12:1-12 New Testament Reading: Matthew 13:9-17

Next week we will look at Jesus’ saying ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it abides alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit (John 12:24)

 

 

A Sonnet for Palm Sunday

We come now, with Palm Sunday, to the beginning of Holy Week and in the sonnets that follow I have explored the idea that what was happening ‘out there’ and ‘back then’ as Christ entered Jerusalem is also happening ‘in here’ and ‘right now’. There is a Jerusalem of the heart. Our inner life also has its temple and palaces, its places of corruption, its gardens of rest, its seat of judgement.

In the sequence of sonnets which begins today I invite you to walk with Christ, and let him walk with you on both an outer and an inner journey that leads to the cross and beyond.

Do feel free to reproduce these poems for any Church services in which you may wish to use them, just include a line to say “From Sounding the Seasons, by Malcolm Guite, CanterburyPress 2012”

This sonnet, and the others I will be posting for Holy Week are all drawn from my collection Sounding the Seasons, published by Canterbury Press here in England. The book is now back in stock on both Amazon UK and USA and physical copies are shortly to be available in Canada via Steve Bell‘s Signpost Music. The book is now also out on Kindle.

As before I am grateful to Margot Krebs Neale for the evocative images that accompany these poems. Of the image at the beginning of this post she writes:

– Who stands in the eye of the camera? behind that gate?
– The Savior? or me looking out and seeing in my fellow being an incarnation of the Saviour?

and for the image below she says: ‘this wax the child is melting could symbolise this resistance which becomes the source, the stock of the light that comes from us.’

As always you can hear the poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button below or on the title of the poem

Palm Sunday

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,

The seething holy city of my heart,

The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,

And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find

The challenge, the reversal he is bringing

Changes their tune. I know what lies behind

The surface flourish that so quickly fades;

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,

The hardness of the heart, its barricades,

And at the core, the dreadful emptiness

Of a perverted temple. Jesus come

Break my resistance and make me your home.

Ode to St. Cecilia

The 22nd of November is the feast day of St. Cecilia, Christian Martyr and Patron Saint of music. Last year I was commissioned by JAC Redford the LA-based composer and orchestrater, to write an Ode to St. Cecilia for a new piece of music he has in turn been commissioned to write, which had its premiere in LA in October of last year.

Here, for this year’s St. Cecilia’s day is the text of my ode and a recording of my reading of it. In the recording I also talk a little about the inspiration and how it came to be written. I hope you enjoy it. Margot Krebs Neale has contributed the beautiful image which follows the poem As usual you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button.

Ode to St. Cecilia

You rested briefly here Cecilia

In this good ground, the Roman catacomb:

Its rounded vaults are rich with sudden sound

As pilgrims hymn you through the darkened air.

For you made music in your martyrdom,

Transposed the passion of your wedding night

To angel-given garlands, wreathed in light.

In all your three days dying you made room

For beautiful abundance, gifts and giving,

Your death was blessing and your passing praise,

As you gave way to grace,

Like music that still lives within its dying

And gives in giving place.

 

Cecilia, give way to grace again,

Transmute it into music for us all:

Music to stir and call the sleeping soul,

And set a counterpoint to all our pain,

To bless our senses in their very essence

And undergird our sorrow in good ground.

Music to summon undeserved abundance,

Unlooked for overbrimming, rich and strong,

The unexpected plenitude of sound

Becoming song.

Image by Margot Krebs Neale

First Fruit of my time at Duke

My poet’s eyrie in North Carolina!

I have at last begun my Sabbatical term, and it starts with three weeks as Artist in Residence at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina, a wonderful place which is doing pioneering work in  linking Theology and the Arts. I am writing, and giving, some lectures on Herbert and Coleridge but I am also here to practice my art as a poet, and so I am posting here the first poem I have written since my arrival. I am hoping to make a new collection of sonnets about the sayings of Jesus to be called ‘Parable and Paradox’, and this one is the first to emerge, I hope you enjoy it.

As usual you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or on the ‘play’ button

 

 

‘He who has ears to hear let him hear’

 

How hard to hear the things I think I know,

To peel aside the thin familiar film

That wraps and seals your secret just below:

An undiscovered good, a hidden realm,

A kingdom of reversal, where the poor

Are rich in blessing and the tragic rich

Still struggle, trapped in trappings at the door

They never opened, Life just out of reach…

 

Open the door for me and take me there.

Love, take my hand and lead me like the blind,

Unbandage me, unwrap me from my fear,

Open my eyes, my heart, my soul, my mind.

I struggle with these grave clothes, this dark earth,

But you are calling ‘Lazarus come forth!’

 

Whilst I am here I will also be doing some poetry readings/performances which are all open to the public, so if you are in the vicinity do come along to some of them, here is the full list as it currently stands:

September 8 at 5:45-7:15 pm – “A Conversation with Malcolm Guite;” AEHS; York Room

September 11the Song/poetry performance in the Weatherspoon art Museum Auditorium, Greensboro 6:30-8pm

September 15 at 7:00pm – Dean’s Songwriter Series Concert featuring Malcolm Guite; Dean’s Office / DITA; AMCR

September 17th Poetry Reading with John Balaban at the Regulator Bookstore, 9th Street Durham 7pm

September 18 at 11:25am – Preaching in Goodson Chapel

September 24 at 7:00pm – “Mariner!  Malcolm Guite on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’;” DITA; AMCR

A Sonnet for Palm Sunday

We come now, with Palm Sunday, to the beginning of Holy Week and in the sonnets that follow I have explored the idea that what was happening ‘out there’ and ‘back then’ as Christ entered Jerusalem is also happening ‘in here’ and ‘right now’. There is a Jerusalem of the heart. Our inner life also has its temple and palaces, its places of corruption, its gardens of rest, its seat of judgement.

In the sequence of sonnets which begins today I invite you to walk with Christ, and let him walk with you on both an outer and an inner journey that leads to the cross and beyond.

Do feel free to reproduce these poems for any Church services in which you may wish to use them, just include a line to say “From Sounding the Seasons, by Malcolm Guite, CanterburyPress 2012”

This sonnet, and the others I will be posting for Holy Week are all drawn from my collection Sounding the Seasons, published by Canterbury Press here in England. The book is now back in stock on both Amazon UK and USA and physical copies are shortly to be available in Canada via Steve Bell‘s Signpost Music. The book is now also out on Kindle.

As before I am grateful to Margot Krebs Neale for the evocative images that accompany these poems. Of the image at the beginning of this post she writes:

– Who stands in the eye of the camera? behind that gate?
– The Savior? or me looking out and seeing in my fellow being an incarnation of the Saviour?

and for the image below she says: ‘this wax the child is melting could symbolise this resistance which becomes the source, the stock of the light that comes from us.’

As always you can hear the poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button below or on the title of the poem

Palm Sunday

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,

The seething holy city of my heart,

The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?

Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;

They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,

And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find

The challenge, the reversal he is bringing

Changes their tune. I know what lies behind

The surface flourish that so quickly fades;

Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,

The hardness of the heart, its barricades,

And at the core, the dreadful emptiness

Of a perverted temple. Jesus come

Break my resistance and make me your home.

Ode to St. Cecilia: New poetry and music from Guite and Redford!

I have been commissioned by JAC Redford the LA-based composer and orchestrater, to write an Ode to St. Cecilia for a new piece of music he has in turn been commissioned to write. I’m happy to say it has its premiere this weekend. Here is JAC’s announcement:

Announcing the world premiere of Sound Becoming Song, a new composition for a cappella choir with music by J.A.C. Redford to poetry by Malcolm Guite.

Sunday, 27 October 2013 8:00 PM Pomona College, Bridges Hall of Music 150 E. 4th Street, Claremont, California 91711

The new work is part of a concert entitled “Songs of Celebration” featuring the Millennium Consort Singers, directed by Martin Neary, with organist Edward Murray and the Pomona College Choir, conducted by Donna M. Di Grazia.

The program, honoring St. Cecilia, patron saint of music,
also features a world premiere by Tom Flaherty,
along with music by Benjamin Britten, Gerald Finzi and James MacMillan.

Free admission with open seating, no tickets. Doors open 30 minutes prior to performance Seating is limited, so please arrive early to guarantee your seat!

So if you are in or near Claremont, do go along.

Meantime here is the text of my ode and ask a recording of my reading it. In the recording I also talk a little about the inspiration and how it came to be written. I hope you enjoy it. Margot Krebs Neale has contributed the beautiful image which follows the poem As Usual you can hear the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button.

Ode to St. Cecilia

You rested briefly here Cecilia

In this good ground, the Roman catacomb:

Its rounded vaults are rich with sudden sound

As pilgrims hymn you through the darkened air.

For you made music in your martyrdom,

Transposed the passion of your wedding night

To angel-given garlands, wreathed in light.

In all your three days dying you made room

For beautiful abundance, gifts and giving,

Your death was blessing and your passing praise,

As you gave way to grace,

Like music that still lives within its dying

And gives in giving place.

 

Cecilia, give way to grace again,

Transmute it into music for us all:

Music to stir and call the sleeping soul,

And set a counterpoint to all our pain,

To bless our senses in their very essence

And undergird our sorrow in good ground.

Music to summon undeserved abundance,

Unlooked for overbrimming, rich and strong,

The unexpected plenitude of sound

Becoming song.

Image by Margot Krebs Neale