I really must draw the attention of visitors to this site to a superb article on the Crisis website by Christopher Blum. It focuses on the work of a little known French poet, a contemporary of Shakespeare, who wrote an epic sonnet sequence on the Passion of Christ. As I read it, I couldn’t stifle a groan of lament that it does not form part of the forthcoming issue of StAR on the theme of poetry and praise. It would have been a perfect fit beside the articles on St. John of the Cross, St. Robert Southwell, Ben Jonson, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Roy Campbell and Charles Causley that will be published in the next issue of StAR. In any event, every serious Catholic should know something of the work of the poet of whom Blum writes, a poet whose extraordinary achievement is truly monumental. The article also serves as good meditative reading on the Passion of Our Lord for Holy Week. Having read the article myself I can pay no better tribute to the scale of this poet’s vision than to say that he seems to me to be the French Dante. Check it out. Here’s the link:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/a-poet-of-the-passion-of-christ