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Falconry and other poems
by
John William Houghton
Photographs by William Ames Bascom
…The lilac's florets make
A shape that isn't there, a volume sketched
By fancy in the service of the mind's
Desire to know a world that has no gaps,
As moments of our being sketch out lives
Until we fill the gaps prepared for us.
--"An Ode on St. Cuthbert's Day"
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ISBN 1-558832-092-8
Price: $12.99
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| About the Book: Houghton's verse has been described
as "a seamless modernization of Robert Frost." The characters
of these poems show us glimpses of a spiritual world hidden, not in the
forest paths and stone fences of New England, but in the equally rugged
landscape of human relationships. Striking imagery illuminates the "inscape"
of Houghton's characters, and the metrical discipline undergirding their
seemingly natural speech reflects the labor of structuring one's life. While
a few of the poems have appeared over the last thirty years in such publications
as The Living Church and The Classical Outlook, this is Houghton's
first book-length collection. |
…If halted in her lifelong pilgrimage,
The peregrine can patiently be tamed,
Though at the price of seeming cruelty:
Her eyelids must at first be seeled, sewn shut,
Her food doled out by that one hand alone
Which purposes to master her wild heart.
Once manned, the falcon learns to ride,
In hood and jesses, with the falconer, or, leashed,
To perch upon a block; to come when lured;
And most of all, to stoop and carry back
Her prey in trade for some small scrap of meat.
Is this the captive soul: first blinded, starved,
Tied down by triple cords of Truth, Desire,
And Sloth, which braid the nature of the world?
--"Falconry"
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| One Reviewer Writes: Houghton's grasp of cadence, rhythm,
strophe, and tone is masterful and confident....His use of syncopated rhythm,
and lyrical metaphor, combine to make poetry that is reminescent of the
classicists. Clearly, Houghton is familiar with the workings behind 'the
poem', to put it simply--'poetics'. The words from John William Houghton
flow like a stream, rise up and connect the soul to the stars with a yearning
for the lovely, the enlightened, the lucid. This reviewer can offer no "stock
response" to the likes of the poetry from the man who wrote "Falconry
and other poems." Get this book!
--Penny Lynn Dunn, Editor, "Tacenda"
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About the Author: John William Houghton, born in 1953,
grew up in Culver, Indiana, a town his family founded in 1844. A prize-winning
historian and a Fellow of the Episcopal Church Foundation, with degrees
from Harvard, Yale, Indiana and Notre Dame, he has also served as Assistant
Literary Editor of the St. Louis magazine of the arts, River Styx,
and contributed to the HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism.
He has taught English and Religious Studies, and served as a school chaplain.
His fantasy novel, Rough
Magicke, will be available to order from booksellers in January,
2005. |
