February 8, 2011
Just did "The Dream of the Rood" in class yesterday. A great poem: unvarnished mercy, and need. I really like the Anglo-Saon stuff so far. "The Wanderer" "The Seafarer," "Wulf and Eadwacer," no attendant nonsense. Nothing about "hard view of life," just the goods, brother. Contemporary Christian poetry is so afraid of need and mercy and answer: what would they look like, on the ground like that? So they jazz with language, too often anyway. Give me a sword (and a bigger body), and I'm hacking on the North Sea.
