Versing the Mystery. By Christopher Villiers. Waterloo, ON: Arouca Press, 2024. 202 pp. $19.95 (paperback).
Poetry has been long believed to hold mystical, even sacred powers. Up until the modern period, it has historically held more reverence and cultural sway than prose. As James Matthew Wilson asserts in The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking (Wiseblood Books, 2015), it is the paradigmatic art form, the prototypical creative act and the analogy to which all other arts refer. Its material is speech, and in moments of versification, therefore, we are most like God, creating ex nihilo. One of the primary aspects that distinguishes humanity from the beasts is our capacity for generative language (Large Language Models notwithstanding). We are people of words—and believers are people of the Word. For the Christian, therefore, poetry can be an enterprise as holy as it is human.
Christopher Villiers sets forth on this enterprise in his most recent collection of verse. As its title suggests, he attempts to articulate in sound and meter the tenets of the faith. The faithful will recognize the orthodoxy in both doctrine and narrative, and they will even discover new insights into the characters populating the redemption story as laid out in scripture. Villiers specializes in the history of Christian doctrine—so it is little surprise that he incorporates a historical lens as well as literary creativity into his poetry.
The collection is divided into three parts. In Part I, Sonnets from the Spirit, we are treated to various dramatic speeches from Biblical figures. These are disconnected encounters, and one must already be acquainted with the text to see the chronological framework of scripture at work in the movement. Some of the poetry reveals a fervent heart at work, channeling psychological realism and a traditional reading the holy text, as evident in “David and Absolom” and “Jonah.” The implicit narrative picks up considerable steam when we arrive at “Palm Sunday,” as the sonnets become a Passion sequence, vividly illustrating the emotional impact of the crucifixion on the Christ and his onlookers.
In Part II, Petals of Vision, we step away from the historical and into the personal. The forms shift throughout this section. There are more than a few cinquains and tankas, many of them about the passing of the old and the new: old loves, old seasons, new years, new perspectives. Here, too, we are presented with sonnets, though the subjects are the complex difficulties of romantic love in addition to the depth of Christian thought. The primary human speaker in this section is frequently fraught with despair and bitterness over a cheating (or merely uninterested) partner. Other speakers are natural or mythological creatures: a seagull, owls, a dragon, a unicorn—giving readers an anthropomorphic picture of their vision. Later, the section switches focus again to a series of love poems, these seeming reciprocal, but then suddenly what once was romance degrades into friendship. The love poems reveal a passionate intensity, as witnessed in “A Park Revisited” or “A Year Ago.” “Each Warm Kiss” swims in sentimentality, which, if a bit overwrought, is nevertheless effective in making the reader long for the healing touch of the beloved. Similar to Sonnets from the Spirit, the goal here seems to be to examine the individual petals less than the flower—to feel the world as well as to see it.
Part III, Another Odyssey, holds the promise of its Grecian allusion. Indeed, it retells the Greek epic from the perspective of various characters of myth and legend. The purpose of this section, it seems, is to bring us sympathy for the villains and pity for its heroes. “Eurydice to Orpheus,” for instance, recasts the underworld quest as another abduction—this time from the sweet peace of death to the return to a harsh and chaotic world above. “Calypso” makes us feel the unrequited love of a goddess for a mortal, and the temporal agony she would have experienced possessing supernatural power but without the ability to change free will. But then this mode surprisingly turns to Biblical characters again and then later figures in Christian history—figures like Constantine, Julian the Apostate, St George, St Patrick, and more. This other Odyssey appears to be the movement from a helpless, dark mythology to the light of the spreading Gospel throughout the world.
As many critics have long noted, believing in the metaphysical truth as presented in scripture does not equate to aesthetic excellence. Yet there is an epistemological advantage to knowing the truth that sets us free. Villiers’ recognition of the mystery grants him such an advantage, and it is right that we praise such successes when we see them. The poet is at his best in displaying the psychological complexity of his characters. “Rahab,” for instance, is a dramatic monologue of the well-known prostitute that borrows from the language of the age of exploration, seeing in the conquest of Jericho the division between the old world and the new, not merely a novel worldview but an imminent dispensation. The tense language of “Abraham and Isaac” indicates the writer’s familiarity with Kierkegaard’s famous exposition on the father’s ethical dilemma. “Earth in Easter” is an example of when the poet’s use of imagery and language rises, combining springtime senses with rich theology. Finally, there are some moments of deep wisdom, illustrated profoundly in “Alexamenos Worships His God,” which I reproduce here for its effect:
I have tasted
immortality, forms of bread and wine
He comes among us, time is not wasted
in our gatherings, words cannot refine
what happens: but this I shall let you know
He hears our cries, us crucified below. (ll.17–22)
All in all, the faithful will find much that is familiar and even some surprising perspectives, like someone who brings out of his storehouse new treasures as well as old.
As we are all in the process of perfecting our craft, I might point out several areas where new life might be breathed into the verse. As noted above, Villiers is at his strongest when building psychological complexity. Yet, at times, the description in the telling of the story weighs down the ability to show a character’s internal struggle. In “Prometheus” and “Atlas,” as but two examples, the reader needs less of a recitation of events and more of the speakers’ turmoil to relate to them. At other times, the verse itself struggles to find its footing. Some of the language feels halting and uneven, fitting the rhyme rather than creating sentences that flow smoothly with rhyme as a natural outgrowth of the composition (see “My Eve”). The phrasing does not always match the metrics (“Samson”), and the syntax can be forced at times, especially when inverted (“Saul,” “Seagull”). I might also urge the poet to eschew simplistic or cliched phrasing that detracts from the power of the narrative (“Ruth,” “Bacchus”).
That being said, there are moments when the text comes alive with the thundering voice of a preacher, as in “It is Finished.” When these voices eschew didacticism, they ring powerful to the earnest ear hoping for the good news in a poem. This collection is a pleasant tableau whispering that all art creates a response; the very purpose of scripture is to elicit repentance, transformation, and renewal. Further, Villiers shows us that all art is, to some degree, ekphrastic. As co-creators in the eruption of history,
All are artists: there is no exception,
Coals of creation glowing red within,
A spark divine erupts in conception,
As new beauty shines out beneath the skin. (“Artist,” ll.1–4)
