The Parthenon
Ebook
The twenty-seven poems in this collection were written over a period of many years. They vary greatly in style and length. The poems in the first two sections are lyrical. Natural beauty evokes wonder and tugs at memory. Creatures dance and sing. There is joy. The last poem in Part II, "The Generations," shifts tone abruptly. There is conflict and loss. In the end, with the dolphins, beauty renews hope. "The Generations" is a bridge to the complex narrative poems and dramatic lyrics in Part III. Here the tragic is displayed, but also the divine power that redeems it. Part IV plunges into our modern abyss. The poems are an anguished cry from the heart of the fog enveloping our civilization. The long poem, "The Fog," evokes the plight of lost and lonely individuals tending their private campfires in the night of the world, cut off from transcendence and marooned in the abstract unreality of the digital universe. Part V carries forward this momentum, referencing the genocidal violence of our age, but then moves from darkness and horror up into the light of revelation and peace.
“George Hobsons’s exquisite poetry comes from a life infused
with love; love of people, place, and God. Love enables him to see
and transmit beauty, even amid personal and communal
suffering.”
—Maria Apichella, poet and Associate Professor, University of
Maryland University College
“George Hobson's words are like feelers slowly exploring the
contours of the world around, feeling for the presence of grace and
reporting what they find. These poems have a remarkable
physicality, both in the simple evocation of the stuff of a
God-drenched world, and in the startlingly fresh metaphors (Christ
as Braille, for example, and as the rain that dissolves the fog of
contemporary alienation) that slip into the fabric and give it a
further sheen.”
—Rowan Williams, University of Cambridge
Product Details
- Title : The Parthenon
- Authors:
- Hobson, George
- Hays, Richard B.
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Publication Date: 2019
- ISBN: 9781532690037
George Hobson has published four volumes of poetry: Rumours
of Hope (2005); Forgotten Genocides of the 20th
Century, a collective work (2005); Faces of Memory
(2017); and Love Poems for my Wife, Victoria (2019). A
retired Episcopal priest who has lived over half his life in France
working for ecumenical renewal, he has taught theology is many
developing countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, Haiti, Armenia,
and Pakistan.