|  Hopkins
was my ‘A’ Level poet and so I first read him when
I was sixteen years old. I found the poems almost impenetrable
at that time but enough of the magic of the words got through
to let me know that there was something there worth going back
for later.
As I grew into my twenties and thirties I had repeated experiences
of meeting new situations in which I felt more or less out of
my depth: a man walked in front of my car and was killed. I felt
myself awakened spiritually and called to service as a healer;
I was torn between this call and my desire to continue exercising
my creativity as an actor. My marriage failed and I found myself
alone; I plunged down into the depths of a depression from which
I feared I would never surface. I travelled to beautiful places
and felt my soul soar with the majesty of the natural world. I
felt a strong sense of horror at the destruction and pollution
of the Earth.
In each and every one of these situations I found words from
Hopkins reaching out to me like messages from a guide who had
gone ahead to check out the way, or left like signposts for a
lost man to cling to.
“Flesh falls within sight of us…”
“and dost thou touch me afresh?”
“This is to hoard unheard,
Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.”
“Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours.”
“mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.”
“the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding
shoulder…”
“What is all this juice and all this joy?”
“O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew-”
It is immensely comforting in times of distress to know that
someone has been there before and has felt the same way. Hopkins
became and remains a dear companion on my journey.
Hopkins’ life and work are like a rushing river which,
constrained on either side by rough rocks, has not the luxury
of lateral spread to meander the broad plain but cuts instead
a deep canyon. His worldly experience was narrow and the restrictions
he placed upon himself severe but this has only served to deepen
and magnify the cutting power of his legacy. It is precisely because
he explored this vertical and inward axis that his work has such
intense relevance – he has cut through the strata of human
experience and his poetry resonates at every level.
When I have been troubled by relationship issues: either within
my self, with another or with God, Hopkins has been there with
his words and the deep thoughts they represent. When I have felt
anger towards the stupidity and selfishness of humanity in relation
to the natural world no-one expresses it better. In times of isolation
or depression I have found him standing by my side. Whenever I
have needed words to convey my sense of awe and wonder at the
majesty of creation his words are those that have been whispered
in my ear.
In short I feel that I have developed a strong personal relationship
with this poet which is of immense value in my life – as
deep as any I have with anyone currently living. Then I read in
his writings that he considered his work to be only partially
complete without a voice to sound it aloud:
“till it is spoken it is not performed,
it does not perform, it is not itself.”
I realised that perhaps there was something that I could do for
him in return for all that he has given me. Perhaps by performing
his poetry I could enable his work to live as he always intended
and wished that it would do (“it is my precise aim”)
and at the same time perhaps the work would become more accessible
and be able to reach a wider audience.
That is how I became a Hopkins performer. |
