ABSTRACT

Is the act of writing a poem ever truly “innocent”? What is the relationship between sin and repentance in the context of human speech? And if language is a fallen medium, how do we preserve the integrity of our verbal utterances? This chapter examines the interplay of sin and repentance within the texture of poetry in order to articulate a theologically responsible account of what it means to speak with integrity in the broader ranges of human discourse. Throughout this study, I draw upon poetry, literary criticism, and theological discourse in order to contend that language is not a tool to be manipulated, but a living power to be negotiated, in humility and kenotic love (the self-denying, self-giving model of love exemplified by Christ, upon which much contemporary Christian ethical theory is grounded).1 My argument is predicated on an understanding that language is a manifestation of our broken human condition; in this view, poetry is a precarious form of art, for it necessarily requires our intimate involvement with the corrupted and corrupting powers of words. Poetic integrity therefore begins with the recognition that we are all called to account for – and ultimately to repent of – not only the content, but also the rhythms, textures, structures, and styles of our utterances. In this chapter, my primary conversation partners are two poets who acutely grasp the intrinsic perils of poetic utterance: Geoffrey Hill and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Specifically, I draw upon Hill’s critical discourse and Hopkins’s verse in order to contend that, while poetry is never truly free from transgression, it is possible to write with integrity, and that such integrity registers within the texture of the poet’s craft through acts of resistance, repentance, and self-dispossession.