Dear Reader,
Please enjoy two poems and an interview with the poet, Christopher Villiers, on his recent collection Versing the Mystery, available now through the website https://www.aroucapress.com/versing-the-mystery.
Julian the Apostate
He stank of Christian enthusiasm.
Like malaria it would linger still,
His whole reign was one short breathless spasm
A churchy zealot whom his faith made ill.
Rebel children still bear their father’s look,
He tried to organise a tangled web
Of myth and custom, make a creedal book
Out of quaint stories that should quietly ebb
Away with dignity. We had to laugh
At his preacher’s voice, the lack of Greek taste
And Roman restraint in his classic path
Those sacrifices seemed a gushing waste
We nicknamed him “the butcher,” much too much
Effort, lack of ease and grace, the sad state
Of the impossible, that man was such
As could but only be an apostate.
Saint Francis
It takes a wise man to become Christ’s fool,
It takes a great man to become a child
To live not just to hear the Gospel rule,
The raging fury to become so mild.
You shed your gaudy clothes and father proud,
You left behind earth’s glory and repute
Feasting on hunger, destitution-bowed,
You trod the painful path in Christ’s pursuit.
Pain was your joy, poverty your bride
Your congregation men, birds wolves and trees
Within your body preached Christ crucified
And stigmata greater than eye sees.
Brother Francis, let me be your brother,
Kept close to Christ and his Blessed Mother.
Tell us a little bit about your upcoming book! What are you most excited for upon its
publication? What can readers expect to find within its pages?
Versing the Mystery is a collection of my poems written over a nine-year period, covering a
proud range of forms and styles. It includes meditations on scripture and classical mythology, as
well as poems about love, hate, despair and funny owls seeking political office. Whatever ideas,
feelings etc excite you dear reader, you should find something of interest in my book, which can
be bought on Amazon or on my publisher’s website: Versing the Mystery. The fact that has been
kindly published by Arouca Press excites me the most! Publishers would often prefer an armed
robber in their office to a poet seeking publication, so it means a lot that Alex Barbas’ august
enterprise has taken a chance on me with his firm.
What brought you to poetry? Why is this the art form you’ve chosen to adopt?
Poetry is an art form which chose to adopt me. Although I had studied poetry at school and had a
certain interest in the poetry of John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robert Frost, even
writing a few bad verses as a teenager (a symptom of adolescence like acne and at least as ugly)
it was not until the age of twenty-five that words started forming patterns in my head. Sonnets
just started pouring out of me. I had been somewhat restless and explored ways of being more
creative through Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. It’s rather Californian in its hippieness
but has some good exercises, like keeping a stream of conscious morning journal. After a while I
discovered that I was a poet of sorts. I love the intensity and intricacy of poetry and there is a
sense of fulfilment creating a poem, the English poet Philip Larkin described it as like laying an
egg. Doubtless people in other creative disciplines feel something similar, I have been destined
to feel it in this particular manner.
Is there a particular poetic style you find yourself drawn to?
Perhaps because I am a rather disorganised person, I relish the discipline of formal verse, rhyme
and meter do not fetter my muse, rather they provide a framework through which she can grow
and flourish. Free verse poetry, like monasticism, is in my opinion a very special vocation, much
as I admire Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, I could no more write anything remotely in that
manner any more than I could become a Trappist. I often write sonnets; in fact, the first section
of Versing the Mystery is a sequence of sonnets meditating on the Christian Bible from Genesis
to the Book of Revelation. The sonnet form is rather strict, which I enjoy, challenging me to say
a lot in only fourteen lines. Tankas, which follow a Japanese form of only five lines are another
form which I find myself drawn to from time to time. I tend to write fairly short poems, rarely
more than twenty or so lines but maybe I will attempt an epic poem in my old age!
How do you approach a poem? Of course, this is a taboo question for artists, but can you
walk us through a bit of your thought process and writing method?
I often find that an idea for a poem comes to me, like a piece of grit in an oyster, but the pearl
of a poem takes time to develop. Occasionally I get up in the night and the poem I’ve been
hunting for reveals itself to me in my mind and I must write it down before it hides itself
again. Inspiration is essential, but the mind needs to be prepared for it by extensive reading,
learning the craft of poetry (as with building a house, passion and imagination should be
aided by a practical sense of how things – whether words or bricks – hold soundly together). I
often have to write a lot of drivel for practice before something half-decent finally emerges,
one toils and tears out hair and then a revelation ambushes.
Are there any themes you just can’t seem to escape, no matter how many poems you
write on the subject?
I often find myself writing on Biblical, mythological or historical themes, often in the form
of dramatic monologues by figures such as King Herod, Medusa or Attila the Hun. I love to
try and put myself in another’s shoes, perhaps it is inspired by love of Robert Browning, the
nineteenth poet who wrote such brilliant dramatic monologues as “My Last Duchess.” I
doubt that I could write a tolerable play in verse or prose if my life depended on it, but I do
like drama. That said, I try to write on a broad variety of themes in a broad variety of styles,
one of the great dangers in the arts is self-plagiarism, I don’t want to keep repeating myself,
whilst I have a certain style (formal verse) and certain subjects speak louder to me than
others I try to do something a bit unexpected now and again, like writing about an office
lunch break, just to keep things interesting.
Poetry is not exactly at its peak, at least in terms of readership, in the eyes of the public.
Do you think poetry offers something different from other art forms? And how can it be
resurrected, or should it be?
Poetry is speech raised to the level of song, like religion and other major art forms it
addresses primal needs and realities and will never die – even if like religion it may multiply
in debased forms in the absence of anything better. While not everyone reads books of poetry
(or indeed books of any kind in this age – but that is another matter) there is an interest in
verse, expressed not least in people worrying about the neglect of poetry. One can for
example see in the success of the so-called “Instapoets,” people like Rupi Kaur posting their
verses on social media, that there is a hunger for poetry, even if the quality is sometimes
questionable. I think poets need to step out of the classroom and creative writing workshop,
collaborating with other arts such as music and engage the public. Poetry does not need
resurrection, but it may need to nudged fully awake on occasion.
How do you hope to add to the tradition of poetry? How do you hope your readers will
respond?
I hope that in some humble way I will carry on the tradition of poetry, giving some glimmer
of wonder and delight to my readers. If I give some light to a reader’s mind or warmth to a
reader’s heart then I have not laboured entirely in vain. Perhaps I will inspire readers to read
the work of other poets and maybe even write some decent poetry themselves. I know that I
am no genius like Dante or Shakespeare but my poetry in its modest way considers some of
the ideas passions and forms of such giants and like a small flower in a forest of mighty trees
may my work form some fitting part of poetry.
Many poets will also try their hand at prose, is this something you’ve tried or do you have
any interest in approaching prose?
I have written a few essays and book reviews in the past, perhaps I should try creative writing in
prose one day. I am not sure that I have the stamina to write a novel-length work, I often think
writing a novel is quite a task of architecture and doubt I could structure such a work properly.
That said, somebody must write a historical novel about Queen Tamar, the great ruler of
medieval Georgia and if nobody else does it in English, I might have to try. I have thought about
attempting a short story or two, I love the short stories of Joyce in his book Dubliners, as well as
the short stories and novellas of Chekhov, such as Ward No. 6. I have great respect for prose
literature and prose authors, though in the immediate future I think I’ll concentrate on verse.
We touched on themes above, and certainly, one theme which is apparent to the reader is
faith. Apart from subject or inspiration, how has your faith influenced your poetry (I’m
thinking in the more metaphysical sense, as Coleridge approaches it, or Tolkien). Is there
a particularly religious element to poetry, regardless of its subject or author?
Poetry, as the poet and critic Dana Gioia has observed, is enchantment. It is above the narrowly
rational and prosaic, though it is not opposed to what is best in reason and prose. Homer was no
fool to invoke a supernatural muse as he began his epic poems, the best of poetry as with the rest
of the creative arts bears a spark of the divine. As St John Paul II observed in his letter to artists,
artists are called to participate in the creative work of God: “Through his “artistic creativity” man
appears more than ever “in the image of God”, and he accomplishes this task above all in
shaping the wondrous “material” of his own humanity and then exercising creative dominion
over the universe which surrounds him. With loving regard, the divine Artist passes on to the
human artist a spark of his own surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power.”
God speaks the cosmos into being and our various forms of creative expression including poetry
engage with this for better or worse. One can see this at work in Tolkein’s idea of sub-creation.
My faith in God has inspired me, rather as God inspired Balaam’s donkey in the Bible to speech
and I believe that there is a sacred element to poetry regardless of its subject and author (at times
working in spite of subject and author!) By the grace of God my stringed together words
participate a little in his creative redemptive and sanctifying Word.
Christopher Villiers is a Catholic poet based in North Devon, a beautiful if rainy part
of south-western England. Versing the Mystery published by Arouca Press is his
fourth book of poems. Besides writing poetry, he is an editor, proofreader and
anything else within the law of God anyone will pay him to be. He has a Masters
degree in Theology from Durham University and in his spare time likes to read, walk
and converse with cats. You can keep track of him on his blog The Rhymester’s
Revels.
The Locus 
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