Matthew White’s book of poetry Propelled into Wonder certainly does just that, sometimes with the upward thrust of a jet plane that leaves one breathless, sometimes with the leisurely push of a punter’s pole that invites you to observe the slowly passing bank, sometimes with the loving but decisive shove of a friend who knows better than you.
White draws upon a vast array of inspiration, beginning and ending with a contemplation of the sea, as if in reading these poems, we are accompanying him on his “Walk Between the Bays” and treated to his “Marine Meditations.” In between are redefinitions and reworkings of too-familiar words, remapping of beloved hymns and liturgies, and reliving of everyday realities. He has reimagined some of his own memories in light of new wisdom gained through struggle and the practice of empathy.
I do not know White personally. I have not met his family, attended his church, or known the story of his loss that paints the pages of this book. But his poetry proves that particularity has a universal appeal. Therefore, I do not need to know White to experience his grief because it is portrayed honestly and poignantly, so that I come to know my own griefs better through his.
These poems offer a window into his faith journey. We watch him wrestle with his calling and, in that surprising turn that poetry makes, find that the window is, in fact, a mirror in which to view our own past, present, and imagined future.
White condenses a world of thoughts and memories into a few lines that arrest you for a moment. In “Fruitless,” he laments,
The larks have stopped singing comfort.
The wells have given up. Here where
I used to feast on choice morsels
until locusts graffitied ruin.
He is playful with form, function, and sound, even in poems dealing with more serious subject matter. This playfulness is demonstrated by a nonsensical limerick and diatribe on pigs that sit pages away from an anguished contemplation of a homeless man’s suffering. White has clearly learned from C.S. Lewis, who believed that “joy is the serious business of heaven”1 and can hold the promised joy of eternity in the same hand that holds present pain and doubt.
The well-known couplets from Ecclesiastes provide a helpful but flexible structure as we explore the couplets and contrasts of life with White. I am particularly struck by how Part 1: “Breath and Death” is full of short poems that could almost be read in one breath, like “Nuance:”
I rifled through the boxes—
so neat and ordered — trying
to sift through neglect. Dying
to meet that absent stranger.
This simplicity layered within these short poems shows us that death sometimes steals our breath and words. However, they are restored with more complex wordplay in Part 4: “Cleaving and Leaving,” which has space for more thought, like “Imagination”: “Imagination is the playground of celestial interruption./ Swings squeak and slides may slow yet wonder effervesces.” As life has its rhymes and echoes, though, the sections turn back on each other. For example, one could read “Penitence” in Part 5 and suddenly understand “Unfathomable” in Part 2 with greater depth and appreciation. Good poetry describes the meaning of a moment, and great poetry makes that moment mean more beyond time.
There is something for all poetry lovers in White’s book and plenty for poetry skeptics. These words demand to be dwelled with, and these metaphors pray to be plumbed. The more I read, the more I wonder at the joy that sustains to the end. Found in the pages of “Propelled into Wonder” are reflections of one seeking a God who dwells both within and outside of time, who knows and loves all.
- C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 72. ↩︎