#poetry society of new hampshire

[sweatermuppet]

to the roofers nailing shingles by silas denver melvin, published by the poetry society of new hampshire in vol 66 of touchstone

[jllongwrites]

The Fall 2024 issue of TOUCHSTONE from the Poetry Society of NH has an audio edition: https://psnh.org/touchstone-audio-edition-is-here/. Many of the poems are read by the poets themselves, including mine!

[justforbooks]

With his shrewd eyes and his forks of corn-yellow hair, Julian Sands was a natural choice to play the valiant, romantic George Emerson, who snatches a kiss from Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) in a Tuscan poppy field in A Room With a View (1985). “I wanted him to be real, not a two-dimensional minor screen god,” he said. “I liked him in his lighter, sexier moments, less so when he was brooding.”

Sands, who has died aged 65 while hiking in mountains in California, was dashing in that film, but he could also project a dandyish, effete or sinister quality. He was blessed with a mellifluous voice and a lean, youthful, fine-boned face, even if, as a child, his brothers insisted he resembled a horse. (He agreed.) In James Ivory’s film of EM Forster’s novel, he was pure heart-throb material. His participation in the notorious nude bathing scene was no impediment to the picture’s success.

Prior to that, he had played the journalist Jon Swain in The Killing Fields (1984), Roland Joffé’s drama about the bloody rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The picture marked the beginning of his friendship with his co-star John Malkovich. “I’d been cautioned by Roland to keep my distance from John because he was an unstable character,” Sands recalled. “And John had been told by Roland to stay away from me, because I was a refined, sensible person who didn’t want to be distracted. In fact, we bonded instantly.”

Malkovich directed Sands in a one-man show in which he read Harold Pinter’s poetry. First staged in 2011, the production had its origins in an occasion six years earlier when Pinter, suffering from oesophageal cancer, had asked Sands to read in his stead at a benefit event in St Stephen Walbrook church in the City of London. The writer “sat in the front row with his stone basilisk stare”, Sands recalled.

Not all his work was so highfalutin, and a good deal of it fell into the category of boisterous, campy fun. In Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986), he played the poet Shelley, who indulges in sex, drugs and séances with Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) and the future Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson), and is prone to recite verse naked in thunderstorms.

In a similar vein but far less deranged was Impromptu (1991), which brought together other notable 19th-century figures including George Sand (Judy Davis) and Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant). Sands, who played Franz Liszt, described it as “Carry On Composer”.

Born in Otley, West Yorkshire, he was raised in Leeds and Gargrave, near Skipton; he later described his childhood as “part conservative and part Huckleberry Finn”. His mother, Brenda, was a Tory councillor and leading light of the local amateur dramatic society, while his father, William, who left when Julian was three, was a soil analyst. Julian made his acting debut in a local pantomime at the age of eight.

At 13, he won a scholarship to Lord Wandsworth college, Hampshire. He moved to London to study at Central School of Speech and Drama, and while there became friends with Derek Jarman. He played the Devil in an extended promotional video that Jarman directed in 1979 for Marianne Faithfull’s album Broken English. The role had been intended for David Bowie, who dropped out at the eleventh hour. “You’re devilish,” Jarman told Sands. “You can play it.”

The actor’s first film appearance came in an adaptation of Peter Nichols’s stage comedy Privates on Parade (1983), starring John Cleese and Denis Quilley, from which his one line of dialogue was cut. There was more rotten luck when he won the lead in a new Tarzan movie, only for the financing to fall through. It was eventually filmed as Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), with Christopher Lambert donning the hallowed loin-cloth.

On television, he starred with Anthony Hopkins in the miniseries A Married Man (1983). In Oxford Blues (1984), he was a rower butting heads with a Las Vegas parking attendant (Rob Lowe) who has tricked his way into a place at Oriel College. He was in The Doctor and the Devils (1985), inspired by the Burke and Hare case. “I had a roll in the hay with Twiggy which took about 15 takes,” he said.

Following A Room With a View, he agreed to play the lead in Ivory’s next Forster adaptation, Maurice (1987), before abruptly dropping out and fleeing to the US. In the process, he left behind his wife, the journalist Sarah Sands (nee Harvey), who described him as “restless” and “dramatic”, and their son, Henry. “I’m not the first person to create stability and security and then dismantle it even more effectively than I created it,” the actor said.

Once in America he took on an array of film parts. In Warlock (1989), he played the son of Satan, wreaking havoc in modern-day Los Angeles. Investing this pantomime villain with lip-smacking brio, he was likened by the Washington Post to a “hell-bent Peter Pan” and nominated for best actor in the Fangoria Chainsaw awards. He reprised the role in Warlock: The Armageddon (1993).

As an entomologist in Arachnophobia (1990), he was called upon to have as many as a hundred spiders crawling all over his face. Alternating these mainstream projects with arthouse ones, he played a diplomat in pre-war Poland in Krzysztof Zanussi’s Wherever You Are … (1988) and a monk in Night Sun (1990), the Taviani brothers’ adaptation of Tolstoy’s short story Father Sergius.

For the Canadian horror director David Cronenberg, he starred in the warped and witty Naked Lunch (1991), which disproved those who had declared William S Burroughs’s original novel unfilmable. Just as outré but less accomplished was Boxing Helena (1993), directed by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David. Sands played a surgeon who keeps a woman captive by making her a quadruple amputee.

After starring as a young classics teacher in his friend Mike Figgis’s film of Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version (1994), Sands worked a further six times with that director, appearing in his movies even when he was an unorthodox choice for the job in hand. One example was the part of a menacing Latvian pimp in Leaving Las Vegas (1996).

Later roles include a mysteriously unblemished Phantom in Dario Argento’s version of The Phantom of the Opera (1998), Louis XIV (whom Sands described as “the first supermodel”) in Joffé’s Vatel (2000), a crime kingpin named Snakehead in the Jackie Chan vehicle The Medallion (2003), a computer security wizard in the comic caper Ocean’s Thirteen (2007), a younger version of the businessman played by Christopher Plummer in David Fincher’s take on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and a sadistic paedophile in the gruelling wartime odyssey The Painted Bird (2019).

On television, he was a Russian entrepreneur in the fifth season of 24 (2006) and the hero’s father, Jor-El, in two episodes of the Superman spin-off Smallville (2009). For the BBC, he played two very different actors in factually based one-off specials: first Laurence Olivier in Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore (2005), then John Le Mesurier in We’re Doomed! The Dad’s Army Story (2015).

His recent work includes Benediction, Terence Davies’s haunting study of Siegfried Sassoon, and the thriller The Survivalist (both 2021), which found him back in the company of Malkovich. One of several titles still awaiting release is the drama Double Soul (2023) starring F Murray Abraham and Paz Vega.

Sands never stopped wandering, walking, running and climbing. “I am on a perpetual Grand Tour,” he said in 2000. Asked in 2018 about his eclectic career, he explained: “I was looking for something exotic, things that took me out of myself. I think I found myself a little boring.”

He was reported missing while out in the San Gabriel mountains, north of Los Angeles, in mid-January 2023. His remains were found in June.

In 1990 he married Evgenia Citkowitz. She survives him, along with their two daughters, Imogen and Natalya, and his son.

🔔 Julian Richard Morley Sands, actor, born 4 January 1958; died circa 13 January 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[it-takes-acquired-minds]

brought a poem to the gun fight because someone told me to and rather than fiddling with a trigger i spun a pencil with millimeter graphite inside.

brought a poem to the gun fight because driving down the winding roads through the picturesque mountains of new hampshire, each goliath peak crested in silver snow, readying myself for the traffic that came with this weekend's totality i thought about how writer rhymes with fighter and how all i've ever known how to do is write.

brought a poem to the gun fight because poetry isn't violence.

brought a poem to the gun fight because when you leave the stains of your uncontainable thoughts on keyboards or pages of spiral-bound notebooks you do not leave blood, you do not leave scars. 

brought a poem to the gun fight because people remember poetry with fondness, i remember crying into my mother's arms when neil from dead poets' society died, i remember the times i cried over my mother with less love.

brought a poem to the gun fight because i've learned poetry like a lover,  i know where to touch her to make her giggle, i know she craves words like dulcet and ephemeral and she likes the smell of pencil shavings and coffee grounds when she wakes up and she likes the sound of my voice, poetry has been stroking my hair and peppering me with kisses since i was still scared of the dark, since dr. seuss was the only poet i knew of.

brought a poem to a gunfight and each paper bullet was labeled with a different name.

brought a poem to a gunfight and it chronicled maya angelou and her singing caged birds, a fighter with one fist, two fist, battered and bleeding as she wrote maybe in spite of and maybe because she thought her voice was lethal, whose accusation as an eight-year-old girl led to conviction led to murder and who then became a poet.  

brought a poem to a gunfight and it was an apology I didn’t owe to william cowper and his foolish precedents, whose poetry spoke of god because he believed he was damned, who by the end of his life went mad, the shattered pieces of his mind stuck together into the stained glass window of the st. peter’s church in berkhamsted. 

brought a poem to a gunfight and begged forgiveness of sylvia plath, how i wish to hear the words her husband lost, how i wish to make a pilgrimage to her husband’s grave and carve her name beneath it as so many before me have done, to me an unmarked grave is holy because the splotched ink hands of a violent woman are inside. 

brought a poem to the gunfight because maybe poetry isn’t violence but maybe poets are

and i have always been nothing if not a poet.  

brought a poem to the gun fight

[randomwordbyruth]

the Last Resort

‘Cause there is no new frontier…

We have got to make it here!

…

You call some place paradise…

kiss it goodbye.’

…

broken bits of a song…

every time I’ve heard it sung…

there is no admittance for my wrongs.

even in the midst of a rural confession

good time notions are interrupted by the footprints I have left on the ground

I am ignorant in the dirt… of any lesson

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

My favorite actor

This is not the easiest topic of conversation for me. It’s not that I don’t have a favorite actor because I do. It’s that it’s hard for me to talk about him and what he meant to me without getting overly emotional. For starters I want to paint you guys a picture. Your in a very small apartment and have collected all of the Disney movies. Your favorite is Beauty And The Beast but you have a soft spot for Aladdin. The Genie to you was the funniest thing ever. You don’t understand all of his references but you learn all of his lines with the timing added. It especially comes in handy after you move away from your small apartment. His lines still make you laugh harder than ever because you’re starting to understand his impressions (The first one I understood was Jack Nicholson “Okay Sparky, here’s the deal you wanna court the little lady you gotta be a straight shooter do ya got it?”) The older you get you learn about his live action career which only makes you fall in love with him more. You decide from a young age that he’s your favorite actor. 

Your on your iPad FaceTiming your best friend in California that you were still talking to at the time. You were enjoying yourself when your dad swings open the door “Robin Williams just died!!” At first I just felt like he was playing some sort of elaborate prank on me. “Haha dad you’re hilarious death isn’t funny.” Only he wasn’t joking I would quickly find out after looking it up. He was gone. One minute he was there and making me laugh and the next minute it was like poof he was gone. I made myself a promise that I wanted to honor him. I was working at the time as a counselor in training. I thought that was something that I wanted to do. This was before my aspergers diagnosis so I didn’t know why I felt so weird sometimes or like I didn’t belong. To me he was the actor for the misfits out there to give them something that they could relate to. 

Losing somebody that I had never met but always wanted to just so I could give him a hug and tell him about my story and how much he helped me was a heavy blow. I was the first out of all my friends to really struggle with depression at 14. It hit me hard. This guy was the Genie, he was Fender in Robots, he was Mrs. Doubtfire, Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning Vietnam all of these movies that I had learned to love and grown up with and he had committed suicide. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. How could this man who brought me so much laughter as a child and as a young adult have been suffering so much? My parents started to worry about me and I had to get therapy. I learned better coping mechanisms than just burying everything. I realized that even though he was gone his legacy of his films would live on. There were so many people that struggled with getting over that loss so I wasn’t as alone as I thought. 

I loved watching him as a kid because he made me laugh. I fell in love with his acting process as I got older and found that there was really nobody else in the world like him. I might have had heroes in my days but really the one that I most want to meet still to this day it’s Robin Williams. I wanted to give my Genie who made me laugh and taught me that laughter truly is the best medicine. I wanted to thank him for everything that he did for me outside of a dream. I had a dream about him when I was a lot younger, probably fifteen right when I started grappling with the fact that my hero at the time had passed on. It was the two of us sitting on a park bench not too different from Good Will Hunting. He taught me a very important lesson in that dream; sometimes good people fake being happy so that the people who are sad will get lost in their happiness and be content even if it’s just for a little while.  

Over the last six years this death has gotten a little bit easier. It’s still not something I love talking about. I’ll probably never be able to watch his standup no matter how funny it is. It just is too hard for me because so many of his jokes were about the real things he struggled with. Most of my friends still don’t understand why I gravitate towards the soft hearted funny man who made me laugh when I was a kid and cry as an adult. They’ll indulge me sure letting me talk about how nobody was as multi diverse in his roles as he was but they’ll never truly get it. Their favorite actors are still alive and in their prime. Or they don’t have a favorite actor at all. 

To me, there will never be another Robin Williams. There was only one and the world chewed and spat him out eventually letting him struggle to maintain the happy smile and jokester nature. He will be forever remembered for the movies that he made as some of them are so ingrained in pop culture. I would like to leave you with a quote from each four of my favorites and a gif saying something I’ve wanted to for the last six years. 

“You know you’re very beautiful. You’re also very quiet. And I’m not used to girls being that quiet unless they’re medicated. Normally I go out with girls who talk so much you could hook them up to wind turbine and they could power a small New Hampshire town.” (Good Morning Vietnam) 

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And medicine, law, business, engineering these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, these are the things we stay alive for.” (Dead Poets Society) 

“There’s three things in this world you need; respect for all human life, a nice bowel movement every once in a while and a navy blazer.” (The Fisher King) 

“There’s only one place I can call home and that’s because you’re there.” (Birdcage) 

I’d like to thank you all for indulging me. I know that this went places but I feel a bit better now that I’ve gotten these feelings out. I will always carry his characters with me especially the very first and I want to say something that I’ve wanted to say since I was five

Robin you’re free. Free from the ties that had tragically bound you to this earth and gave very little back except for the laughter of millions of people across the world. You’ve done everything that you could to keep yourself and others happy. You don’t need to worry about us anymore. We’ll be fine with your legacy and the films that you left behind. I hope wherever you went, if anywhere, it’s better than here. 

[drugs-and-deadlines]

she & her

You are haunted by the manic female NYC writer trope. Not a trope, really, because that feels like a reduction of her wiles, her slipperiness, her popularity, her perseverance, and her sex. It is a certain kind of ghost, progressive and beguiling, her kink as boundary pushing as the prose lifting up her personal narrative. She sculpts meaning-making out of every lived moment in her life, but most especially the young ones, because those are more thrilling for her audience, wherein she oscillated from a teetering cocktail of stimulants and alcohol, between egotist self-aggrandizing and pure self-flagellation. 

You know exactly who she is, because her definition and her very body is composed of the resistance to definition, most especially the questions and expectations of femininity. She is by turns lithe, waifish, possibly sick; by turns defying categorization with a smirk and a firm muscular body; by turns unafraid of her fatness in brain and body to take up space. When she generally speaks of her body, it is to make a philosophical point about the world at large and the place of female-bodied people in it; she skewers her feelings about her own corporal form with analysis. You know her because you have flirted with her in a literal sense, but also a figurative one -- you have let your body, fashion, and being explore each of the categories but none of them ever stuck. And a big part of you has feared why that is -- perhaps you don’t know yourself, perhaps your indecisiveness outstrips your ambition, a thoroughly un-manic trait. Perhaps, most horrifyingly, you fall too cleanly into a Freudian ball of neuroses to allow yourself to ever be you and thus will always be chasing the best way to present yourself. And meanwhile, while you’re asking yourself all these questions, she is writing.

She is not just writing. She is staying up late, refining the same sentence with rigor, stripping it further down to its essentials while you stare up at the ceiling, wondering at the opportunities you’ve missed. She is a ghost because she is able to slip through all the cracks of the house that is your life. She creates a mythos of every doorway she’s passed through. Even in her floundering, even in her telling of her own failures, there is a sort of certitude that each bumbling embarrassment served the narrative purpose of bringing her right to this moment: a moment of fame, of byline, of acknowledged brimming talent. 

If you had little money or privilege growing up, she had all of it, spending summers on a family boat in Greek waters, inviting friends from your liberal arts college to come along and therefore fall in love with her for years. She deliberately chose not to apply to the Ivies because she wanted a less conventional path; you chose not to apply because you never thought you could get in. She ends up dating the women from your past and you watch the thirst traps and inside jokes filter their way through Instagram and Twitter, a life you might have lived but weren’t brave enough or wealthy enough to attract. You cannot offer anyone a good time consistently because it exhausts you along with the other trappings of the class you were born into. You eventually grow out of resenting that which you never had, but the injustice of how the rich always have extra time still stings. Time seems to be everything a writer needs. 

If you did grow up with privilege or money, the ghost shapeshifts. She worked her way through undergrad as a server, or possibly a dominatrix or a stripper, a woman aware of the power of her own body and the ability to turn society’s preying into a currency she could use. She is always embodied, all her couplings and couplets enviable because of the bravery that surrounds them. When she is tired in her classes the next morning, it is only because she worked a double the night before. Her voice still leads your class’s intellectual thought, she openly confesses that she fell asleep in her work uniform with Plato’s Republic two pages away from the end of the reading assignment sometime around 2am. She does this in your 8am class. You’d hope to catch her for lunch, but she always has work to do, is always begging off invitations, and you hope desperately that it’s true and not because you’re not cool enough. And on the weekends, she always seems to have friends from work and beyond inviting her out. They have nothing to do with your age group or with the school you both attend. She is rapacious in her discipline but still somehow has time to try all the drugs you haven’t tried and are too afraid to. How is she so unafraid? Her fortitude and coolness with hard work is a currency too, making up for all the things she didn’t grow up with. Every privilege you’ve ever had only seems to undercut your sense of whether you earned anything. She is raw, willing to say the first absurd thing that comes in her head. Her poetry takes risks yours cannot. 

And you are pissed. Because regardless of where you come from, you are confronted with all these Instagram realities (that only make larger the actual realities), which is mostly that the rules are still the same. You avoided trying to be a cool girl as a child and a teenager because you knew you could not accomplish it, and so you strove to satisfy yourself with being an intellectual. You decided to give up on being an actor or a singer or a dancer and plunge yourself into letters because you thought it would be a refuge from constant performance. Constant performance required constant realigning to the changing modes of cool, and so you thought writing would suit you better. How wrong you were. 

Writing in itself is a more complete performance: if you are serious about it, you must be an intellectual builder of words in every moment of self-narrative, whether spoken, written, or posted. You listen to tales of “dressing for the muse” and showing up at the writing desk at 6am. You also listen to tales of complete slobbishness, writing on the floor with crayons, unafraid to make mistakes while creating in underwear and a tank top. Sex and danger, especially when both can be intertwined, are palpable in every sentence and interaction the manic girl has. It is part of her attraction. No knows if she’s going to want to fuck or fight, or, best of all, floatingly let you know she thinks you are full of your own light. The latter ideal scenario happens right before she leaves you to stride home, empowered enough to tromp through the late night New York City streetlamps dappling through the trees, deciding to walk with your now ever-aggrandizing thoughts rather than take the MTA. She is most thrilling when she leaves you wanting more, which is always. Your thoughts ping around your head with a velocity borrowed from her own. 

Once home, you look up all the writers she mentioned and see them all connected by several nodes: one MFA program or a particular residency, publishing house, or theater company. You become determined that this node is the epicenter, which will be true for a time until you’ve penetrated it and find another node of hot writers beyond your reach. 

There are always conversations happening without you. There are always people fucking without you. There will always have been a better time to be in New York, some time well before you were here, when it would’ve been easy to meet these intellectuals and be friends with them and the real estate was cheaper therefore making the creation of art and myth more accessible. You will always have missed the boat by five years or more, something you curse your age or attachment to another city before this one for. They took time away from the pulsing magnetism of your true love for this city, and you resent that, because now you are less attractive, less energetic, less manic than you were when you were younger. You cannot stay out for so long without chemical dependence & when you do, you bemoan that you should’ve been writing. But when you stay home to write, you invariably miss the moment when you would’ve met the right person who would’ve fallen in love with you & asked to read you.

You alternate with being obsessed with her, wanting in some way to possess her as a friend or ally or lover, to actually being possessed by her. The need to write what you know are brilliant fucking things infecting every moment -- prose pooling into an appetizing puddle at the bar, waiting for you to mop it up, poetry lingering on the steering wheel, electrifying your hands when you touch it to go go go go go fly to paper, even in those moments when you are fully possessed by her and become her, it is not enough, there is a time when you were more brilliant, more boundary pushing, more consumed by the manic need for a narrative that you simultaneously sculpted in your own life and committed opulently to paper. The poetry monster is always hungry. There is always a better-worded performance of the myth of your own making and you begin practicing by interviewing yourself. The graphomania can always, always, always increase its acceleration. But better that than a pandemic-inspired staring at the ceiling, this moment when you are certain you missed your chance and it will never come again, that there will never be a doing coke in the Village with some rich folks you barely know, the bumps wrapping you in cynicism and excitement for your new friend group all at once. No, in your pandemic reality, and perhaps before, clout is only gained via social media and you seem to be especially bad at that. The manic NYC female writer is better at it. She is genderbending her own performance of herself, twisting her depression and isolation somewhere in Connecticut or New Hampshire or her Manhattan fire escape as something to be envied.

How, you wonder, how how how how how

And then it becomes obvious

Her performance of self is nimble like white supremacy, resilient like the virus itself, always finding a new way to shapeshift her experience into something artful. You should be using this moment, because she certainly is. Because what the manic NYC female writer has is an obsession and possession of talent, a haunting that allows her to keep working at the problem into the late hours, when hers is the only light left on. And then there are moments when she obsesses instead of possesses, moments when the light is off but she is still awake, questioning this ceiling, her choices, and the fact that she’s chosen a stable partner beside her in bed instead of an ever-shifting existence that allows for new narratives to come in. She questions her life with the same rigor she does her stories, every choice that does not suit the performance and pursuit of her potential.

And, to that end, all of her/your characters become you/her or are versions of you/her -- and that is the only constant. The feedback she/you get(s) in workshops is that your/her main characters are too similar and that is precisely the point -- you are her and she is you and you both see one another on every street corner and every passage, only a few centimeters to the left in an alternate universe. The Quantumness of it all exhausts you and haunts the many yearning yous, the whole network of them, so overwhelming that then you must return to the facts of your autobiography to find stable ground before your own architecting of your autobiography shifts it again.

[eugene114]

Short Name:Anne Steele

Full Name:Steele, Anne, 1717-1778

Birth Year:1717

Death Year:1778

Anne Steele was born at Broughton, Hampshire, in 1717. Her father was a timber merchant, and at the same time officiated as the lay pastor of the Baptist Society at Broughton. Her mother died when she was 3. At the age of 19 she became an invalid after injuring her hip. At the age of 21 she was engaged to be married but her fiance drowned the day of the wedding. On the occasion of his death she wrote the hymn "When I survey life's varied scenes." After the death of her fiance she assisted her father with his ministry and remained single. Despite her sufferings she maintained a cheerful attitude. She published a book of poetry Poems on subjects chiefly devotional in 1760 under the pseudonym "Theodosia." The remaining works were published after her death, they include 144 hymns, 34 metrical psalms, and about 50 poems on metrical subjects.

Dianne Shapiro (from Dictionary of National Biography, 1898 and Songs from the hearts of women by Nicholas Smith, 1903 ============================= Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporary minister-hymnist Benjamin Beddome. All the same, some of Steele's sufferings were very real. She lost her mother at age 3, a potential suitor at age 20, her step mom at 43, and her sister-in-law at 45. She spent many years caring for her father until his death in 1769. For most of her life, she exhibited symptoms of malaria, including persistent pain, fever, headaches, and stomach aches. Caleb Evans, in his preface to Steele's posthumous Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose (1780), noted that she had been bed ridden for "some years" before her death:

When the interesting hour came, she welcomed its arrival, and though her feeble body was excruciated with pain, her mind was perfectly serene. . . . She took the most affectionate leave of her weeping friends around her, and at length, the happy moment of her dismission arising, she closed her eyes, and with these animating words on her dying lips, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," gently fell asleep in Jesus.

Historically, her most popular hymn has been "When I survey life's varied scene" (and its shortened form, "Father, whate'er of earthly bliss"), a hymn that turns earthly loss or denial into a spirit of thankfulness, published in over 800 North American hymnals since 1792. Not all of her work deals with personal agony. Her hymns span a wide doctrinal and ecclesiastical range, some crafted and used for her father's congregation. Her metrical psalms are among the finest of the genre. Steele's hymns and psalms were published in two volumes in 1760, Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, under the pseudonym Theodosia, with an additional volume of material published after her death, in Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose, 1780. Sixty two of her hymns, including new material and some revisions by Steele, were published in a hymnal for Baptists in 1769, A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, edited by Caleb Evans and John Ash. Forty seven were included in John Rippon's A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors in 1787; the only author with larger representation was Philip Doddridge, with 101. These collections represent the earliest attempts to anthologize Baptist hymns and were vital for bringing Steele's hymns into wider public worship, where they have been a mainstay for over two hundred years.

Chris Fenner adapted from The Towers (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, August 2015) Recommended Bibliography: Cynthia Y. Aalders, To Express the Ineffable: The Hymns and Spirituality of Anne Steele (Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2008). Cynthia Y. Aalders, "In melting grief and ardent love: Anne Steele's contribution to eighteenth-century hymnody," The Hymn (summer 2009), 16-25. J.R. Broome, A Bruised Reed: The Life and Times of Anne Steele (Harpenden, U.K.: Gospel Standard Trust Publications, 2007). Joseph Carmichael, The Hymns of Anne Steele in John Rippon's Selection of Hymns: A Theological Analysis in the Context of the English Particular Baptist Revival (2012), dissertation, http://digital.library.sbts.edu/handle/10392/4112 Priscilla Wong, Anne Steele and Her Spiritual Vision (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012)

========================

Steele, Anne, born in 1716, was the daughter of Mr. Wm. Steele, a timber merchant, and pastor, without salary, of the Baptist Church at Broughton, in Hampshire. At an early age she showed a taste for literature, and would often entertain her friends by her poetical compositions. But it was not until 1760 that she could be prevailed upon to publish. In that year two volumes appeared under the title of Poems on Subjects chiefly Devotional, by Theodosia. After her death, which occurred in November, 1778, a new edition was published with an additional volume and a Preface by the Rev. Dr. Caleb Evans, of Bristol (Bristol, 1780). In the three volumes are 144 hymns, 34 Psalms in verse, and about 30 short poems. They have been reprinted in one vol. by D. Sedgwick, 1863….

Among Baptist hymnwriters Miss Steele stands at the head, if we regard either the number of her hymns which have found a place in the hymnals of the last 120 years, or the frequency with which they have been sung. Although few of them can be placed in the first rank of lyrical compositions, they are almost uniformly simple in language, natural and pleasing in imagery, and full of genuine Christian feeling. Miss Steele may not inappropriately be compared with Miss F. R. Havergal, our "Theodosia" of the 19th century. In both there is the same evangelic fervour, in both the same intense personal devotion to the Lord Jesus. But whilst Miss Steele seems to think of Him more frequently as her "bleeding, dying Lord "—dwelling on His sufferings in their physical aspect—Miss Havergal oftener refers to His living help and sympathy, recognizes with gladness His present claims as "Master" and "King," and anticipates almost with ecstasy His second coming. Looking at the whole of Miss Steele's hymns, we find in them a wider range of thought than in Miss Havergal's compositions. She treats of a greater variety of subjects. On the other hand, Miss Havergal, living in this age of missions and general philanthropy, has much more to say concerning Christian work and personal service for Christ and for humanity. Miss Steele suffered from delicacy of health and from a great sorrow, which befell her in the death of her betrothed under peculiarly painful circumstances. In other respects her life was uneventful, and occupied chiefly in the discharge of such domestic and social duties as usually fall to the lot of the eldest daughter of a village pastor. She was buried in Broughton churchyard. [Rev W. R. Stevenson, M.A.] A large number of Miss Steele's hymns are in common use, the larger proportion being in American hymnbooks. In addition to "Almighty Maker of my frame," “Far from these narrow scenes of night," "Father of mercies in Thy word," and others annotated under their respective first lines, there are also:— 

  Texts by Anne Steele (381)

[livinglikebritishroyalty]

𝒫𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝑀𝒾𝒸𝒽𝒶𝑒𝓁

♕ 𝐹𝓊𝓁𝓁 𝒩𝒶𝓂𝑒: Michael George Charles Franklin

♕ 𝐹𝓊𝓁𝓁 𝒯𝒾𝓉𝓁𝑒: His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent

♕ 𝐵𝓸𝓇𝓃: Saturday, July 4th, 1942 at Coppins Country House in Iver, Buckinghamshire, England

♕ 𝒫𝒶𝓇𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈: His Royal Highness Prince George The Duke of Kent (Father) & Her Royal Highness Princess Marina Duchess of Kent (Mother)

♕ 𝒮𝒾𝒷𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈: His Royal Highness Prince Edward The Duke of Kent (Brother) & Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (Sister)

♕ 𝒮𝓅𝓸𝓊𝓈𝑒: Her Royal Highness Marie Princess Michael of Kent (M. 1978)

♕ 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝓁𝒹𝓇𝑒𝓃: Lord Frederick Windsor (Son) & Lady Gabriella Kingston (Daughter)

♕ 𝐸𝒹𝓊𝒸𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓸𝓃: Sunningdale School (In Sunningdale, Berkshire, England), Eton College (In Eton, Berkshire, England), Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (In Sandhurst, Berkshire, England), Plekhanov Economics Academy at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (In Moscow, Russia: Honorary Doctorate), St Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences at Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russia: Honorary Doctorate)

♕ 𝐼𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒲𝓸𝓇𝓀: Interests: Armed Forces (Air Force, Aviation, Retired Veterans, Veterans, & World War II), Business (Book Keeping, Economics, Finance, Industry, Insurance, Road Safety, Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises, Specialist Consultancy Advice, & Tourism), Children (Child Care in Asia, Vulnerable Children in Georgia & Russia, Youth in Hackney, & Youth in the UK), Culture (French Language, German Language, Italian Language, & Russian Culture/Heritage/Language), Education (Education in Russia, Colleges & Schools, & Linguists), Health (AIDS, Blindness, Burn Treatment, Children’s Heart Disease, Drowning Prevention, Eye Disease, Health Care in Russia, Heart Disease in Young Adults, Hospitals, & Sight Loss), Maritime (Bermuda, Boating Museums, Dockyards, Operation Dynamo, Training, Yacht Clubs, & Youth Sailing), Nature (Birds, Cats, Conservation in Africa, Dogs, Game in South Africa, & Horses), Religion (Church), Sports (Bobsled, Racing, Rally Driving, Rowing, & Shooting Sports), Science (Automotive, Aviation, Highways, Scientific Instruments, & Transportation), & The Arts (Architecture, Ceramics, Coach Harness Makers, Coach-Makers, Construction, East Asian Art, Leather Making, Media, Painting, Poetry, Print Making, Show-Business Charities, & Telecommunications). Work: A Royal Family by Nordisk Film TV, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home by BBC Enterprises, Chairman of The Founders Board of The Gun Club of Vera Beach, Commonwealth President of The Royal Life Saving Society, Companion of The Grand Order of Water Rats, Competitor of The 1971 FIBT World Bobsleigh Championship, Fellow/Patron/President of The Institute of Road Safety Officers, Fellow for The Royal Aeronautical Society, Fellowship for The Institute of Linguists, Founder Patron of The Genesis Initiative, Freemason, Founder/Patron of The Prince Michael Road Safety Award Scheme, Fundraiser for The Britain’s Charities Aid Foundation Russia, Fundraiser for The Royal Marsden Hospital, Grand Master of The Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons, Honorary Doctor of The Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, Honorary Fellow of The Institute of Highways & Transportation, Honorary Fellow/Patron of The Institute of Linguists,��Honorary Member of The Air Squadron, Honorary Member of The Bentley Drivers’ Club, Honorary Member of The Bermuda Maritime Museum, Honorary Member of The British Racing Drivers’ Club, Honorary Member of The Club Della Mille Miglia, Honorary Member of Leander Club, Honorary Member of The Romanov Family Association, Honorary Member of The Royal Yacht Squadron, Honorary Professor/Patron of the Sinerghia Institute of Economics & Finance, Led a Bentley Rally from Brooklands Museum to Moscow covering the 1700 miles in 10 days, Liveryman of The Honourable Company of Air Pilots, Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Coachmakers & Coach Harness Makers, Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Leathersellers, Liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers, Member of The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Rowing Team, Nicholas and Alexandra by Network First, Official Non-Traveling Reserve for The 1972 Winter Olympics, Participant in the White Knights Ride in Russia, Patron of Care for Children, Patron of European Heart for Children, Patron of Grandma Flew Spitfires, Patron of Roadsafe, Patron of UK Youth First Gear, Patron of The Anglo-Hellenic League, Patron of The Battle of Britain Memorial Trust, Patron of The Benjafield Racing Club, Patron of The Brazzaville Foundation for Peace and Conservation, Patron of The Bermuda Maritime Museum, Patron of The British Airport Services & Equipment Association, Patron of The British Business & General Aviation Association, Patron of The Brooklands Museum Trust, Patron of The Carriage Foundation, Patron of The Chatham Historic Dockyard Volunteer Service, Patron of The Complete Works of Alexander Pushkin in English, Patron of The Friends of No. 11 Fighter Group Operations Rooms, Patron of The Genesis Initiative, Patron of The Harewood Bird Garden, Patron of The Hyde Park Appeal, Patron of The Institute of Certified Book Keepers, Patron for The Institute of the Motor Industry, Patron of The James Myatt Memorial Trust, Patron of The Kapama Game Reserve South Africa at Camp Jabulani in South Africa, Patron of The Kingston Aviation Memorial Fund, Patron of The Kuskovo Ceramics Museum, Patron of The London School of Business & Finance, Patron of The Maritime Volunteer Service, Patron of The Moscow Academy of Industry & Finance, Patron of The Museum of Army Flying, Patron of The Museum of East Asian Art, Patron of The National Eye Research Centre, Patron of The National Park of Wooden Architecture in Russia, Patron of The New Hampshire Highland Games, Patron of The New Names Charitable Foundation, Patron of The Nochlezhka Charity Foundation of St. Petersburg, Patron of The Oxford Quality Programme for Russia, Patron of The Peter the Great Educational Trust, Patron of The Popular Flying Association, Patron of The Remenham Club, Patron of The Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, Patron of The Royal Lake of The Woods Yacht Club in Canada, Patron of The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Patron of Russian Arts & Cultural Foundation, Patron of The Russian Poets Fund, Patron of The Springfield Youth Club, Patron of The St. Gregory’s Foundation, Patron of The Thames Rowing Club, Patron of The Transport Trust, Patron of The Variety Club Lifeline Scheme, Patron of The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain, Patron of The Wellington International School in Dubai, President of The Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, President of The Amberly Museum, President of The The Kennel Club, President of The Light Aircraft Association, President of The Motor Sports Association Council, President of The Royal Automobile Club, President of The SSAFA Forces Help, Provincial Grand Master of The Provincial Grand Lodge of Middlesex, Qualified Pilot of both Fixed Wing Aircraft & Helicopters, Queen Mary’s Dolls House by BBC Enterprises, Royal Patron of Remedi, Royal Patron of The Children’s Burns Trust, Royal Patron of The Prince Michael of Kent Foundation, Royal Patron of The Russian National Orchestra, Supporter of The Association des Amis de l’Orgue de St Swithun, Supporter of The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane, Trustee of The National Motor Museum, Victoria and Albert by Granite & Granada TV Co-Production, & Visitor at the Colfe School

[finishinglinepress]

FINISHING LINE PRESS CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY:

A Vessel of Furious Resolve by Cynthia Knorr

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Cynthia Knorr grew up in Western New York State. After a career in medical communications in New York City, she moved to New Hampshire where she now lives. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Adanna, The Aurorean, Café Review, Shot Glass Journal, Healing Muse, and others. She was awarded First Prize in both the New Hampshire Poetry Society’s national and members’ contests. A Vessel of Furious Resolve is her first collection of poetry.

Cynthia Knorr’s, A Vessel of Furious Resolve, is a very fine book of poems, dead-on, passionate and funny, every word and image in it well chosen and in its proper place, their total effect dazzling and memorable.

–Charles Simic

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#FLP #poetry #chapbook

[thefrostplace-blog]

The Poetry Society of New Hampshire joins Gibson's Bookstore to present poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi 

The Poetry Society of New Hampshire joins Gibson’s Bookstore to present poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi 

Courtesy Post: Thursday, December 1st, 2022, 5pm at Gibson’s Bookstore The Poetry Society of New Hampshire joins Gibson’s Bookstore to present poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi in an evening of verse. This event graciously made possible by the Rowe Family Charitable Fund. “Have you ever had a person say it’s okay, softly to you in the darkness?” Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last…

[sweatermuppet]

the poetry society of new hampshire just nominated one of my poems for pushcart prize!!!!!!!!

[jllongwrites]

Join the Poetry Society of New Hampshire for an afternoon of verse! Bring a friend and a poem (your own, or someone else’s) to read, or come to listen and enjoy the verse. More details at psnh.org.

Event date: Wednesday, June 19, 4:30PM – 6:00PM

Event address: 45 South Main Street, Concord, NH 03301

UPCOMING HEADLINERS at Gibson's:

Marjorie Burke: July 17

Rachel DeWoskin: August 21

[blackkudos]

Arturo Schomburg

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, also Arthur Schomburg (January 24, 1874 – June 8, 1938), was a historian, writer, and activist. Schomburg was a Puerto Rican of African and German descent who moved to the United States and researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years, he collected literature, art, slave narratives, and other materials of African history, which was purchased to become the basis of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, named in his honor, at the New York Public Library (NYPL) branch in Harlem.

Early years

Schomburg was born in the town of Santurce, Puerto Rico (now part of San Juan), to María Josefa, a freeborn black midwife from St. Croix, and Carlos Federico Schomburg, a German merchant living in Puerto Rico.

While Schomburg was in grade school, one of his teachers claimed that blacks had no history, heroes or accomplishments. Inspired to prove the teacher wrong, Schomburg determined that he would find and document the accomplishments of Africans on their own continent and in the diaspora. Schomburg was educated at San Juan's Instituto Popular, where he learned commercial printing. At St. Thomas College in the Danish-ruled Virgin Islands, he studied Negro Literature.

Puerto Rico independence advocate

Schomburg immigrated to New York City on April 17, 1891, and settled in the Harlem section of Manhattan. He continued his studies to untangle the African thread of history in the fabric of the Americas. After experiencing racial discrimination in the US, he began calling himself "Afroborinqueño" which means "Afro-Puerto Rican". He became a member of the "Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico" and became an active advocate of Puerto Rico's and Cuba's independence from Spain.

Marriage and family

On June 30, 1895, Schomburg married Elizabeth Hatcher of Staunton, Virginia. She had come to New York as part of a wave of migration from the South that would increase in the 20th century and be known as the Great Migration. They had three sons: Maximo Gomez; Arthur Alfonso, Jr. and Kingsley Guarionex Schomburg.

After Elizabeth died in 1900, Schomburg married Elizabeth Morrow Taylor of Williamsburg, a village in Rockingham County, North Carolina. They were married on March 17, 1902, and had two sons: Reginald Stanton and Nathaniel José Schomburg.

Career

In 1896, Schomburg began teaching Spanish in New York. From 1901 to 1906 Schomburg was employed as messenger and clerk in the law firm of Pryor, Mellis and Harris, New York City. In 1906, he began working for the Bankers Trust Company. Later, he became a supervisor of the Caribbean and Latin American Mail Section, and held that until he left in 1929.

While supporting himself and his family, Schomburg began his intellectual work of writing about Caribbean and African-American history. His first known article, "Is Hayti Decadent?", was published in 1904 in The Unique Advertiser. In 1909 he wrote Placido, a Cuban Martyr, a short pamphlet about the poet and independence fighter Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés.

The Negro Society for Historical Research

In 1911, Schomburg co-founded with John Edward Bruce the Negro Society for Historical Research, to create an institute to support scholarly efforts. For the first time it brought together African, West Indian and Afro-American scholars. Schomburg was later to become the President of the American Negro Academy, founded in Washington, DC in 1874, which championed black history and literature.

This was a period of founding of societies to encourage scholarship in African American history. In 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History) and began publishing the Journal of Negro History.

Schomburg became involved in the Harlem Renaissance movement, which spread to other African-American communities in the U.S. The concentration of blacks in Harlem from across the US and Caribbean led to a flowering of arts, intellectual and political movements. He was the co-editor of the 1912 edition of Daniel Alexander Payne Murray's Encyclopedia of the Colored Race.

In 1916 Schomburg published what was the first notable bibliography of African-American poetry, A Bibliographical Checklist of American Negro Poetry.

In March 1925 Schomburg published his essay "The Negro Digs Up His Past" in an issue of Survey Graphic devoted to the intellectual life of Harlem. It had widespread distribution and influence. The autodidact historian John Henrik Clarke told of being so inspired by the essay that at the age of 17 he left home in Columbus, Georgia, to seek out Mr. Schomburg to further his studies in African history. Alain Locke included the essay in his edited collection The New Negro.

The Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature and Art

The NYPL and the librarian of the 135th Street Branch, Ernestine Rose, the NYPL purchased his extensive collection of literature, art and other materials in 1926. They appointed Schomburg curator of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature and Art, named in his honor, at the 135th Street Branch (Harlem) of the Library. It was later renamed the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Between 1931 and 1932 Schomburg served as Curator of the Negro Collection at the library of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, helping direct their acquisition of materials. During 1932 he traveled to Cuba. While there he met various Cuban artists and writers, and acquired more material for his studies.

He was granted an honorary membership of the Men's Business Club in Yonkers, New York. He also held the position of treasurer for the Loyal Sons of Africa in New York and was elevated being the past master of Prince Hall Lodge Number 38, Free and Accepted Masons (F.A.M.) and Rising Sun Chapter Number 4, R.A.M.

Later years

Following dental surgery, Schomburg became ill and died in Madison Park Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, on June 8, 1938. He is buried in grave 13785 in the Locust Grove section of Cypress Hill Cemetery.

Legacy

By the 1920s Schomburg had amassed a collection which consisted of artworks, manuscripts, rare books, slave narratives and other artifacts of Black history. In 1926 the New York Public Library purchased his collection for $10,000 with the help of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. The collection formed the cornerstone of the Library's Division of Negro History at its 135th Street Branch in Harlem. The library appointed Schomburg curator of the collection, which was named in his honor: the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Schomburg used his proceeds from the sale to fund travel to Spain, France, Germany and England, to seek out more pieces of black history to add to the collection. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Schomburg to his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

To honor Schomburg, Hampshire College awards a $30,000 merit-based scholarship in his name for students who "demonstrate promise in the areas of strong academic performance and leadership at Hampshire College and in the community."

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg's work served as an inspiration to Puerto Ricans, Latinos and Afro-American alike. The power of knowing about the great contribution that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-American have made to society, helped continuing work and future generations in the Civil rights movement.

Wikipedia

[eugene114]

Anne Steele | Hymnary.org Anne SteeleShort Name:Anne SteeleFull Name:Steele, Anne, 1717-1778Birth Year:1717Death Year:1778

Anne Steele was born at Broughton, Hampshire, in 1717.  Her father was a timber merchant, and at the same time officiated as the lay pastor of the Baptist Society at Broughton.  Her mother died when she was 3. At the age of 19 she became an invalid after injuring her hip. At the age of 21 she was engaged to be married but her fiance drowned the day of the wedding. On the occasion of his death she wrote the hymn "When I survey life's varied scenes." After the death of her fiance she assisted her father with his ministry and remained single. Despite her sufferings she maintained a cheerful attitude. She published a book of poetry Poems on subjects chiefly devotional in 1760 under the pseudonym "Theodosia." The remaining works were published after her death, they include 144 hymns, 34 metrical psalms, and about 50 poems on metrical subjects.

Dianne Shapiro (from Dictionary of National Biography, 1898 and Songs from the hearts of women by Nicholas Smith, 1903 ============================= Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporary minister-hymnist Benjamin Beddome. All the same, some of Steele's sufferings were very real. She lost her mother at age 3, a potential suitor at age 20, her step mom at 43, and her sister-in-law at 45. She spent many years caring for her father until his death in 1769. For most of her life, she exhibited symptoms of malaria, including persistent pain, fever, headaches, and stomach aches. Caleb Evans, in his preface to Steele's posthumous Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose (1780), noted that she had been bed ridden for "some years" before her death:

When the interesting hour came, she welcomed its arrival, and though her feeble body was excruciated with pain, her mind was perfectly serene. . . . She took the most affectionate leave of her weeping friends around her, and at length, the happy moment of her dismission arising, she closed her eyes, and with these animating words on her dying lips, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," gently fell asleep in Jesus.

Historically, her most popular hymn has been "When I survey life's varied scene" (and its shortened form, "Father, whate'er of earthly bliss"), a hymn that turns earthly loss or denial into a spirit of thankfulness, published in over 800 North American hymnals since 1792. Not all of her work deals with personal agony. Her hymns span a wide doctrinal and ecclesiastical range, some crafted and used for her father's congregation. Her  metrical psalms are among the finest of the genre. Steele's hymns and psalms were published in two volumes in 1760, Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, under the pseudonym Theodosia, with an additional volume of material published after her death, in Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse and Prose, 1780. Sixty two of her hymns, including new material and some revisions by Steele, were published in a hymnal for Baptists in 1769, A Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, edited by Caleb Evans and John Ash. Forty seven were included in John Rippon's A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors in 1787; the only author with larger representation was Philip Doddridge, with 101. These collections represent the earliest attempts to anthologize Baptist hymns and were vital for bringing Steele's hymns into wider public worship, where they have been a mainstay for over two hundred years.

Chris Fenner adapted from The Towers (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, August 2015) Recommended Bibliography: Cynthia Y. Aalders, To Express the Ineffable: The Hymns and Spirituality of Anne Steele (Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2008). Cynthia Y. Aalders, "In melting grief and ardent love: Anne Steele's contribution to eighteenth-century hymnody," The Hymn (summer 2009), 16-25. J.R. Broome, A Bruised Reed: The Life and Times of Anne Steele (Harpenden, U.K.: Gospel Standard Trust Publications, 2007). Joseph Carmichael, The Hymns of Anne Steele in John Rippon's Selection of Hymns: A Theological Analysis in the Context of the English Particular Baptist Revival (2012), dissertation, http://digital.library.sbts.edu/handle/10392/4112 Priscilla Wong, Anne Steele and Her Spiritual Vision (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012)

========================

Steele, Anne, born in 1716, was the daughter of Mr. Wm. Steele, a timber merchant, and pastor, without salary, of the Baptist Church at Broughton, in Hampshire. At an early age she showed a taste for literature, and would often entertain her friends by her poetical compositions. But it was not until 1760 that she could be prevailed upon to publish. In that year two volumes appeared under the title of Poems on Subjects chiefly Devotional, by Theodosia. After her death, which occurred in November, 1778, a new edition was published with an additional volume and a Preface by the Rev. Dr. Caleb Evans, of  Bristol (Bristol, 1780). In the three volumes are 144 hymns, 34 Psalms in verse, and about 30 short poems. They have been reprinted in one vol. by D. Sedgwick, 1863….

Among Baptist hymnwriters Miss Steele stands at the head, if we regard either the number of her hymns which have found a place in the hymnals of the last 120 years, or the frequency with which they have been sung. Although few of them can be placed in the first rank of lyrical compositions, they are almost uniformly simple in language, natural and pleasing in imagery, and full of genuine Christian feeling. Miss Steele may not inappropriately be compared with Miss F. R. Havergal, our "Theodosia" of the 19th century. In both there is the same evangelic fervour, in both the same intense personal devotion to the Lord Jesus. But whilst Miss Steele seems to think of Him more frequently as her "bleeding, dying Lord "—dwelling on His sufferings in their physical aspect—Miss Havergal oftener refers to His living help and sympathy, recognizes with gladness His present claims as "Master" and "King," and anticipates almost with ecstasy His second coming. Looking at the whole of Miss Steele's hymns, we find in them a wider range of thought than in Miss Havergal's compositions. She treats of a greater variety of subjects. On the other hand, Miss Havergal, living in this age of missions and general philanthropy, has much more to say concerning Christian work and personal service for Christ and for humanity. Miss Steele suffered from delicacy of health and from a great sorrow, which befell her in the death of her betrothed under peculiarly painful circumstances.   In other respects her life was uneventful, and occupied chiefly in the discharge of such domestic and social duties as usually fall to the lot of the eldest daughter of a village pastor. She was buried in Broughton churchyard.              [Rev W. R. Stevenson, M.A.] A large number of Miss Steele's hymns are in common use, the larger proportion being in American hymnbooks. In addition to "Almighty Maker of my frame,"  “Far from these narrow scenes of night," "Father of mercies in Thy word," and others annotated under their respective first lines, there are also:—

i. From her Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, 1760, vols. i., ii. 1.  Come, let our souls adore the Lord.   Pleading for Mercy.    One of two hymns "On the Fast,  Feb.  11, 1757,"  the  first   being   "While justice  waves  her vengeful hand." 2.  Come, tune ye saints, your noblest strains. Christ Dying and Rising. 3.  Deep are the wounds which sin has made. Christ, the Physician. 4.  Enslaved by sin, and bound in chains.   Redemption. 5.  Eternal power, almighty God.   Divine Condescension. 6.  Eternal Source of joys divine.   Divine Assurance desired. 7.  Great God, to Thee my evening song.   Evening. 8.  Great  Source  of boundless  power and  grace. Desiring to Trust in God. 9.  Hear, gracious  [God]   Lord, my humble moan [prayer] .   The presence of God desired. 10.  Hear, O my God, with pity hear.  Ps. cxliii. 11.   How long shall earth's alluring toys ?   On Longing after unseen pleasures. 12.  How lovely, how divinely sweet.   Ps. lxxziv. 13.  How oft, alas, this wretched heart.   Pardoning Love. 14.  In vain my roving thoughts would find.   Lasting Happiness. 15.  Jesus, the spring of joys divine.   Christ the Way. 16.  Lord, how mysterious are Thy ways.  Providence. 17.  Lord, Thou hast been Thy Children's God.   Ps. xc. 18.  Lord, we adore Thy boundless grace.     Divine Bounty. 19.  Lord, when my [our] raptured thought surveys. Creation and Providence. 20.  Lord, when my thoughts delighted rove. Passiontide. 21.  My God, 'tis to Thy mercy seat.   Divine Mercy. 22.  My God, to Thee I call.   Lent. 23.  O for a sweet, inspiring ray.   The Ascended Saviour. 24.  O Thou Whose tender mercy hears.   Lent. 25.  Permit me, Lord, to seek Thy face.   Strength and Safety in God alone. 26.   Should famine o'er the mourning field.   During Scarcity. 27.  So fades the lovely, blooming flower.   Death of a Child. 28.   Stretched on the Cross the Saviour dies.   Good Friday. 29.  The Lord, my Shepherd and my Guide.  Ps.xxiii. 30.  The Lord, the God of glory reigns.    Ps. xciii. 31.  The Saviour calls; let every ear.   The Invitation. 32.  There is a glorious world on high.    True Honour. 33.  Thou lovely [only] Source of true delight.   Desiring to know Jesus. 34.  Thou only Sovereign of my heart.   Life in Christ alone. 35.  To Jesus, our exalted Lord.   Holy Communion. 36.  To our Redeemer's glorious Name.   Praise to the Redeemer. 37.  To your Creator, God.   A Rural Hymn. 38.  When I survey life's varied scene.   Resignation. 39.  When sins and fears prevailing rise.   Christ the Life of the Soul. 40.  Where is my God? does He retire.   Rreathing after God. 41.  While my Redeemer's near.    The Good Shepherd. 42.  Why sinks my weak desponding mind?   Hope in God. 43.  Ye earthly vanities, depart.    Love for  Christ desired. 44.  Ye glittering toys of earih adieu.   The Pearl of great Price. 45.  Ye humble souls, approach your God.    Divine Goodness.

ii. From the Bristol Baptist Collection of Ash & Evans, 1769. 46.  Come ye that love the Saviour's Name.   Jesus, the King of Saints. 47.  How helpless guilty nature lies.  Need of Receiving Grace. 48.  Praise ye the Lord let praise employ.  Praise.

iii. Centos and Altered Texts, 49.  How blest are those, how truly wise. True honour.  From   "There is  a glorious world on  high." 50.  How far beyond our mortal view.   Christ the Supreme Beauty.   From "Should nature's charms to please the eye," 1760, st. iii. 51.  In vain I trace creation o'er.   True happiness. From "When fancy spreads her boldest wings," 1760, st. ii. 52.  Jesus, and didst thou leave the sky?   Praise to Jesus.   From  “Jesus, in Thy transporting name," 1760, st. iv. 53. Look up, my soul, with cheerful eye.  Breathing after God.   From No. 40, st. v. 54.  Lord, in the temple of Thy grace.    Christ His people's Joy.     From "The  wondering   nations   have beheld," 1760, st. iii. 55.  My God, O could I make the claim.   Part of No. 9 above. 56.  My soul, to God, its source, aspires.    God, the Soul's only Portion.   From "In vain the world's alluring smile," st. iii. 57.  O could our thoughts and wishes fly.   Part of No. 11 above, st. iv. 58.  O for the eye of faith divine.   Death anticipated. From "When death appears before my sight," 1760, st.  iii., vii., viii. altered, with opening stanzas from another source. 59.  O Jesus, our exalted Head.    Holy Communion. From "To Jesus, our exalted Lord."   See No. 35. 60.  O world of bliss, could mortal  eyes.    Heaven. From "Far from these narrow scenes of night." 61.  See, Lord, Thy willing subjects bow.   Praise to Christ.   From "O dearer to my thankful heart," 1780, st. 5. 62.  Stern winter throws his icy chains. Winter. From "Now faintly smile day's hasty hours," 1760, st. ii. 63.  Sure, the blest Comforter is nigh.    Whitsuntide. From "Dear Lord, and shall Thy Spirit rest," 1760, st. iii. 64.  The God of my salvation lives.   In Affliction. From, "Should famine, &c," No. 26, st. iv. 65.  The Gospel, O what endless charms.    The Gospel of Redeeming Love.    From "Come, Heavenly Love, inspire my song." 66.  The mind was formed lo mount sublime.    The Fettered Mind.   From "Ah! why should this immortal mind?" 1760, st. ii. 67.  The once loved form now cold and dead. Death of a Child.   From "Life is a span, a fleeting hour," 1760, st. iii. 68. Thy gracious presence, O my God.  Consolation in Affliction.  From "In vain, while dark affliction spreads," 1780, st. iv. 69.  Thy kingdom, Lord, for ever stands.   Ps. cxlv. From "My God, my King, to Thee I'll raise," 1760, st. xii. 70.  Triumphant, Christ ascends on high.   Ascension. From "Come, Heavenly Love, inspire my song," 1760, st. xxxii. 71.  When blest with that transporting view.   Christ the   Redeemer.    From   "Almighty   Father,  gracious Lord," 1760, st. xi. 72.  When death before my sight. Death Anticipated. From "When death appears before my sight," 1760. 73.  When gloomy thoughts and boding fears.    Com¬forts of Religion.   From "O blest religion, heavenly fair," 1760, st. ii. 74.  When weary souls with sin distrest.  Invitation to Rest.    From "Come, weary souls, with sin distressed," 1760. 75.  Whene'er the angry passions rise. Example of Christ.   From “And is the gospel peace and love?" 1760, st. ii.  

All the foregoing hymns are in D. Sedgwick's reprint of Miss Steele's Hymns, 1863.

--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

====================

Steele, Anne, p. 1089, i., Additional hymns in common use: 1.  Amazing love that stoop'd so low.   Thankfulness. From  "O dearer to my thankful heart," 1780, iii. 2.  Bright scenes of bliss, unclouded skies.   Saved by Hope.   Poems, 1760, i. p. 228. 3.  Jesus demands this heart of mine.   Pardon De¬sired.   Poems, 1760, i. p. 120. 4.  Jesus, Thou Source divine.    Christ the  Way. Poems, 1760, i. p. 53, altered. 5.  Lord, how mysterious are Thy ways.   Mysteries of Providence.    Poems, 1760, i. p. 131. 6.  Lord^in Thy great, Thy glorious Name.  Ps. xxxi. Poems, 1760, ii. p. 158.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II  (1907)

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Wikipedia Biography

Anne Steele (1717 – 11 November, 1778) was an English Baptist and hymn writer.

Wikipedia Biography

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Conversations | Desirée Alvarez

“I think it’s an opportune moment to be reading, since we need escape and uplift right now. Sharing poetry and other writing online, whether by recording, video, or in print will find an eager audience.”

Three-time NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow Desirée Alvarez (Printmaking/Drawings/Artist Books ’97, ’03 and Poetry ’11) talked to NYFA Learning about the challenges of launching a new book during the COVID-19 pandemic. Get inspired by the poet and painter’s optimist approach to the opportunities these difficult times might present to literary artists.  

NYFA: Your latest collection, Raft of Flame, is recently out from Omnidawn. What has your process of promoting and presenting the book been like as we move through this challenging time?

DA: It’s been surprisingly wonderful. My extraordinary publisher Omnidawn rose to the occasion and has been promoting the book and offering free shipping to anyone ordering it from them. They plan to make a video of me reading as well. Poets House and Paolo Javier have been extremely supportive. They created a series called “Poets House Presents," with poets reading from their work and offering craft talks where I've been invited to read from the new book. 

The book was lucky to receive a glowing pre-publication review from Publishers Weekly. I’m also very grateful to journals like Massachusetts Review and Poetry Magazine for making poems from the book available online. I’m grateful to Kenyon Review, Alonso Llerena, and Rosebud Ben-Oni for reviewing my book last week. When the world re-opens, I hope to do some readings. I feel a little cursed on the book promotion front. After my first book came out, my mom became ill and passed away the following year. Now I have a new book, Raft of Flame, and the world is ill. Many readings were canceled. But some people have more time to read and listen to poetry right now, so it’s heartwarming to hear that the poems are bringing solace at a tough time.

NYFA: What sort of advice do you have for poets and other literary artists who may be finding it difficult to write or seek opportunities at the moment?

DA: I think it’s an opportune moment to be reading, since we need escape and uplift right now. Sharing poetry and other writing online, whether by recording, video, or in print will find an eager audience. It’s also an extraordinary opportunity to be focused in the studio or at the writing desk. My students are making powerful work— it’s inspiring. I recommend finding a writing partner or starting a group. It’s a good time to take classes online, and to consult Poets & Writers Magazine to see what programs, residencies, or contests there are to apply for in the future.

NYFA: Like many of our readers, you're a multidisciplinary artist. How does painting inform the poetry you write, or vice-versa?

DA: I tend to work on both painting and poetry at the same time. My painting installations on fabric are often how I begin and develop my poems, so the two processes are fused. For example, I have paintings at Brooklyn Botanic Garden Conservatory Gallery on exhibit now through November with poetry that relates to the poems in Raft of Flame. I like to work through the ideas and emotions in variant scaffoldings. The soil changes, so they grow in different ways. I hope the poems look like paintings in Raft of Flame. Not in a concrete poetry way, but in the sense that I’d like certain phrases, be they images or sounds, to have space and time to breathe and exist in the reader’s eye the way that a shape or color area exists in a composition. Raft of Flame considers a civilization and its culture coming apart, being apocalyptically scattered and then hybridized, so I hope that comes through in how some of the poems look. The art in the book explores legacy on both sides of the ocean. I try to bring that ancestry to life by giving voice to the sculptures of the Aztecs, as well as the paintings of Spanish painters, such as Velázquez. I also hope to summon back the words written by the recorders of this violent history. It’s important to keep these stories alive beyond an academic format.

About Desirée Alvarez Desirée Alvarez is a painter and poet living in New York City. Her second book, Raft of Flame, won the Lake Merritt Poetry Contest selected by Hoa Nguyen and is published by Omnidawn. Her paintings will be on view at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Conservatory Gallery through November. Celebrating magical connections between animals, plants, and humans, she has received three NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowships, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and European Capital of Culture. Her first book, Devil’s Paintbrush, won the 2015 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Award. Her poetry is anthologized in What Nature (MIT Press, 2018) and featured in Other Musics: New Latina Poetry (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). She has published poems in Massachusetts Review, Boston Review, Fence, Poetry, and The Iowa Review. Currently an artist-in-residence at the New-York Historical Society, Alvarez teaches at CUNY, The Juilliard School, and is teaching a workshop called “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” at Poets House this spring.

- Interview Conducted by Alicia Ehni, Program Officer and Kyle Lopez, REDC Fellow

This post is part of the ConEdison Immigrant Artist Program Newsletter #128. Subscribe to this free monthly e-mail for artist’s features, opportunities, and events. Learn more about NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program.

Image: Desirée Alvarez, Photo Credit: Omnidawn Publishing