Poetic Fidelity
The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord
by Anthony Esolen
In a fortuitous and fruitful coincidence, I found myself reading Dom Aelred Watkin's Resurrection Is Now at the same time that I became aware of Anthony Esolen's most recent book, The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord. Allow me to quote from Watkin's work:
The essence of creativity is that what is achieved is something much more than the materials which go to its making. A masterpiece of prose or poetry is immeasurably more than the words of which it is constructed. . . . In a mysterious way the prison-house of the present has been broken open and we experience something that partakes of the universal . . . [something] that has achieved independence of time and place.
Sadly, in our current cultural milieu, Watkin's words are more aspirational than actual. When deprived of musicality, much of modern poetry struggles to exceed the limitations of its medium. The prison house of the present is not to be broken with broken-up prose; there is little if any partaking of the universal.
Into this diminished state of affairs comes Esolen's intense, deeply compelling, and artistically erudite poetry book, a work he describes as "a first salvo in the Christian reclamation of the land of imagination and song" (46). Indeed, the volume contains not only the poem, but also an eloquent apologia of formal poetry, focused on English forms. And yet, The Hundredfold requires no such defense. The poem stands on its own; it is its best argument.
A Clothed Numerical Scaffolding
Having made a case for formal poetry in his introduction, Esolen then offers the reader a structural description of his work, which, he explains, is essentially a single poem comprising twelve long dramatic poems, two of which are dialogues; 67 lyric poems inspired by scriptural verses; and 21 hymns based on traditional melodies and also founded on Scripture, adding up to 100 poems. The twelve dramatic poems and 21 hymns add up to 33 and are designated with Roman numerals; together they contain 3,333 lines; these are meaningful numbers given the 33 years of our Lord's earthly life.
Other numerical details complete the picture, which reveals an analytical approach to writing—or constructing—poetry that may seem at odds with those heart impulses often ascribed to the creative process, a case of the left brain imposing its will on the right brain. Yet nothing of this sort occurs in Esolen's work. The author's profound devotion to his subject, his attunement to the Spirit, and his surrender to a muse pulsing both human and divine are more than enough to animate—and clothe—the numerical scaffolding of the poem. However, only by immersing ourselves in The Hundredfold can we appreciate how successfully the verses array the poem's structure, both embracing and fulfilling it.
The following excerpt from "The Boy Who Brought Some Food," one of the monologues, offers an initial inkling:
Because I lay under the weight of earth
And the dust was a pillow to my cheek—
The dust and blood that swaddled me at birth,
When I first wailed as if my heart would break—
I could but hear and speak
Faintly, and in confusion of the sound;
And all my fellow men who dwelt in tombs,
Where never a call of clarion trumpet comes,
Spoke and heard as if muffled by the ground
And by the crowds of buried men around.
So was the conversation in our rooms.
So is it still, where the word is half-drowned;
And after a moment's silence it resumes. (96–97)
From the particular "I first wailed" to the universal "my fellow men who dwelt in tombs," from the proximate "pillow to my cheek" to the all-encompassing "crowds of buried men around," from the near-lifelessness of a "word . . . half-drowned" to life being restored when "after a moment's silence it resumes"—thus does Esolen transport us from matter to spirit, from grain to grandeur. There is no unbridgeable chasm between the particular and the universal. To dwell in God's providence is to dwell in a unified created and creative realm.
Sofia M. Starnes is a poet and editor of Philippine-Spanish heritage, an American citizen since 1989. The author of six poetry collections, she served as the poet laureate of Virginia from 2012 to 2014. She offers editing services to writers of various genres through Creative Writing Critiques, and serves as a translator of art essays and articles for Galería Cayón (Madrid, Spain) and the Ayala Foundation (Manila, Philippines). She lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, with her husband Bill.
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