Introduction, Forgotten Ground Regained, Issue 6, Spring, 2025

ISSN 2996-6353

New Series Issue 6, Spring, 2025

 INTRODUCTION

In this issue, we move into a space where feelings run high: things people consider sacred, even if other people consider them myths or legends. It’s a space that was beloved to the Inklings. Both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis loved the Northernness of Germanic legend and song, though Tolkien was a Catholic, and Lewis a Protestant, Christian. Before the last century, Greek and Roman mythology had much the same resonance for anyone who learned (as was then required of gentlemen!) how to read Latin, if not also Greek.

This issue of Forgotten Ground Regained includes poems written by people coming from a variety of backgrounds, including professing Christians, at least one Jew and Muslim, adherents of a revived Germanic Heathenism, and people with no religious background at all. I believe, however, that they share an understanding that poetry can bring to life what it means to live within a sacred tradition and to experience, deeply and richly, the riches that come from what some will term myths and legends, and others will term Sacred Writ. I am a committed Christian. You will see that instantly when you read my own contribution, a paraphrase of the 4th Psalm. But I believe I have arranged these poems in a way that not only respects the perspectives of each tradition, but sets them in conversation with one another.

Here's a quick map to the poems by tradition.

Jesse Keith Butler’s excerpt from The Lawgiver, Beneath the Buzzing of my Brainstem, and Immersion represent a Biblical perspective. Similarly, Shelly Nir’s Rock of My Refuge, John C. Mannone’s In the Beginning, my poem, Where Echoes Call and Crash, Jeffrey Rensch’s The Leaf, Daniel D McCollum’s A Hipster Hymn to St. Demetrios, David Jalajel’s Seraph’s Milk, Liv Ross’s Hannah, Prophet of Hope, Steve Knepper’s Gawain, Kathryn Ann Hills’ You Delight in Mercy and Manifest Love, Matthew Dickerson’s Water into Wine, and to at least some extent, Liz Kendall’s Ancestor Doors, draw in some way shape or form on Biblical (or at least, Judeo/Christian/Muslim), themes.

Another set of poems draw on the Norse tradition preserved by the Poetic Edda. These include Math Jones’ poems Listen, He Whispers and Yggr, Judd Bemmels’ Skaði and Njörðr, and Tim Miller’s Ymir and Winter. Adam Bolivar’s Mistletoe and J.M. Pitt’s Maxim draw from the Old English tradition, while Rahul Gupta’s Grim Goes Fishing (based on the Havelok legend from the Lincolnshire coast of the author's birth), offers an Anglo-Danish texture that combines Beowulfian narrative with Norse kennings and mythology.

Close kin, but from a different mythos, are the Irish legends embedded in Frank Coffman’s Samhain at the Graveyard and Keening of the Banshee. Slightly further afield are the classically inspired poems: Leonard Kress’s The War Worth Waging (based on a Horace ode), David Wynne-Jones’ Jilted Princess Finds Solace in Wine and Cats, based on the Greek tale of Theseus and Ariadne, and two alliterative fragments from Michael Champagne, re-presenting the openings of the Iliad and the Aeneid.

That leaves a range of poems reflecting other perspectives. Mahendra Singh’s Invocation provides an alliterative version of a Hindu invocation traditional to Vedic theater. Joshua Frank’s Colors translates a classical Japanese (and Buddhist) poem. Lisa Timpf’s Earth Mother takes a rather more New Age perspective. A.J. Deane’s Loggen Crown is a fantasy poem and hence somewhat more ambiguous as to the mythos it inhabits.

As always, the poems cover a range of styles, from traditional alliterative long lines to alliterative free verse. Many of the poems are best described as inspired by, and in conversation with, the alliterative tradition. They make structural use of alliteration, but often in innovative ways. The Norse and Classically inspired poems tend to be strictest in their use of traditional Germanic alliterative meter. As is his policy, Rahul Gupta’s Grim Goes Fishing follows Old English metrics, except for one section in Old Norse fornyrðislag (describing a Viking longship). Another section near the end deploys Old English-style hypermetric lines. His poems follow Siewersian meter as closely as modern English allows and is therefore worth emulating if you want to produce Beowulf-like effects.

This issue contains one review: Margaret Noodin’s review of Matthew Brennan’s long alliterative verse narrative, The Sea-Crossing of Saint Brendan. As usual, I have a Publications Noted section at the end of the issue. Take a look! There are some really good discoveries in there. And finally, check out the call for submissions.