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 Tolkien 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 both professing Christians and adherents of a revived Germanic Heathenism, at least one Hindu, 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 be able to tell that instantly when you read my own contribution to this issue, 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 which 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. Manone’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 Jelajel’s “Seraph’s Milk”, Liv Ross’s “Hannah, Prophetess 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”, Tim Miller’s “Y>mir” and “Winter”, Adam Bolivar’s “Mistletoe”, J.M. Pitt’s “Maxim”, and Rahul Gupta’s “Grim Goes Fishing”. Close kin, but from a different mythos, are the Irish legends embedded in Frank Coffman’s “Samhain at the Graveyard” and “The 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 Odyssey.

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 broad range of styles, from traditional Old-English style alliterative verse 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 the patterns of Old English, Siewersian meter as closely as modern English allows, and is therefore well worth emulating if you want to produce Beowulf-like effects.

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. Given the state of the world, I have decided the Summer issue will address the theme, “Protests, Opinions, Prophetic Voices, and Flytings”.