A Journal of Poetic Observations
Sparks of Calliope hopes you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season. We are taking a short hiatus. There will be no poems published on:
December 21, 2024
December 24, 2024
December 27, 2024
December 30, 2024
January 2, 2024
January 5, 2024
Thank you for your continued interest in Sparks of Calliope.
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) remains a towering figure of the English Renaissance, celebrated for his profound influence on Elizabethan drama and poetry. Born in Canterbury, the son of a shoemaker, Marlowe attended the King’s School and later Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he excelled in classical studies and earned a reputation for his brilliance and unorthodox thinking. His education, likely subsidized by influential patrons, provided him with the foundation for his later works that would redefine the English stage.
A contemporary of William Shakespeare, Marlowe is often credited with elevating the theatrical art form through his use of blank verse and grandiose themes. His plays, marked by their intellectual depth, bold exploration of power, and complex characters, include masterpieces such as Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus, and The Jew of Malta. These works delve into themes of ambition, morality, and human striving, reflecting Marlowe’s fascination with the limits of human potential and the price of overreaching.
Marlowe’s most famous play, Doctor Faustus, tells the story of a man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power, a narrative that mirrors the playwright’s own interest in challenging societal and theological norms. His lyrical poetry, such as the pastoral elegy The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, showcases his ability to craft both profound and delicate verse, securing his place among the great poets of his age.
Despite his artistic achievements, Marlowe’s life was as dramatic and enigmatic as his works. A suspected spy for Queen Elizabeth’s government, he operated in shadowy political circles, which may have contributed to his mysterious death. In 1593, at just 29 years old, Marlowe was fatally stabbed in what was officially deemed a dispute over a debt, though speculation persists regarding political intrigue or espionage.
Marlowe’s untimely death robbed the world of a playwright whose genius might have rivaled or surpassed Shakespeare’s. Nevertheless, his influence endures, particularly in the development of blank verse and the portrayal of ambitious, larger-than-life characters. Marlowe’s legacy lies in his fearless exploration of human desire and defiance, his works offering a daring and innovative vision that continues to resonate with audiences and readers, cementing his status as a cornerstone of English literature.
Marlowe’s most recognizable poem (found below) would be “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” which was famous enough for Sir Walter Raleigh to write a response a few years later. Another notable work was the unfinished “Hero and Leander,” a lengthy poem which is also exerpted below.
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
My hospice room is rose and blue.
The blue is like the sky.
They think that if you’re happy here,
You’ll be content to die.
They proffer comfort, warmth, and peace,
All shining like the sun.
They strive to meet your every need.
They meet all needs but one.
So now I have another scheme,
My object all sublime.
I’ve gotten on a transplant list,
And so I bide my time.
He values his peers, but he snubs lesser scholars
As if they could scarcely be seen.
He thinks that this shows that his standards are lofty.
It really just shows that he’s mean.
Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems published in a wide range of places, including twenty-six in past issues of Sparks of Calliope.
We were pleased when the smiling nun
shook her head.
They were full, the lorry driver told us.
He was disappointed.
He thought we’d be safer
in the out of town convent than in the city.
He’d grown concerned for our safety
on our long journey through France.
He was nice – ‘doux, comme le sucre’
my friend would often tell him.
But he didn’t understand her accent.
He said his lorry wouldn’t fit
the narrow streets, so
we took a cab to the pension he knew.
Our first Spanish room
and we were happy!
The tiles were cool, if dusty.
We covered the TV.
We didn’t need it.
Two single beds pushed together
with one mattress
to make a ‘cama matrimonial’,
normality in Spain.
The owner was nice,
‘doux, comme le sucre’
my friend told him.
But he spoke no French.
We shopped in the corner shop with
it’s curved window
and explored the streets
of clubs and cafes and bars and lively people
enjoying the night.
And then we returned home.
Home to a locked door that
no amount of banging or shouting would
cause to open.
A friendly passer by understood our plight
and clapped his hands loudly.
A man appeared with a bunch of keys,
enough to fit the locks of several streets.
Normality when Franco reigned.
He let us in with a smile.
He was ‘doux, comme le sucre’
my friend told him,
but he didn’t understand.
Forty years later we found the street.
The curved shop window gave it away.
It was all still there, though only in facade,
waiting for reconstruction or demolition.
It was our first Spanish room
and we were happy.
The facade of a memory that
is still there and remains:
‘doux, comme le sucre’.
And we understand.
It fascinated us as children,
the empty house in the countryside
where we walked the neighbour’s dog.
Why was it empty?
Who had lived there?
We imagined secret passages
leading to priest holes,
walled up dead bodies
and buried treasure.
No one knew.
But we knew
that the dog was reluctant to go near
and we had heard that dogs were sensitive
to the spirit world.
So we knew
it was haunted.
That ghosts lived there,
spirits of the past.
We dared each other to enter
through the broken window.
Maybe we broke it first,
but I don’t remember that.
In the end we all went in,
leaving the dog outside.
But there was nothing.
Just a house.
Empty.
Ordinary.
Not spooky.
Just empty.
I passed it today,
all these years later.
There’s no entering now.
Police tapes surround it.
Maybe the dog knew
that the ghosts were of the future,
not the past.
Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Visit her blog or find her on Facebook.
James Joyce (1882–1941) stands as one of the most celebrated and revolutionary figures in modern literature. Born into a middle-class family in Rathgar, Dublin, Joyce grew up in a rapidly changing Ireland, a backdrop that would profoundly shape his literary imagination. Educated by the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood College and later at University College Dublin, he excelled in languages and literature, developing a fascination with philosophy, aesthetics, and the complexities of human experience.
A writer of unparalleled innovation, Joyce’s works are known for their intricate use of language, stream-of-consciousness techniques, and deep psychological insight. His early collection, Dubliners (1914), presents a vivid portrait of Dublin life, marked by themes of paralysis and epiphany. His groundbreaking novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) introduced his semi-autobiographical protagonist Stephen Dedalus, exploring themes of identity, rebellion, and artistic freedom.
Joyce’s magnum opus, Ulysses (1922), reimagines Homer’s Odyssey in the streets of Dublin over a single day, June 16, 1904. This modernist masterpiece employs experimental techniques, rich allusions, and meticulous detail, capturing the inner lives of its characters and elevating the mundane to the mythic. Though initially controversial and banned in several countries for its explicit content, Ulysses solidified Joyce’s reputation as a literary pioneer.
Joyce’s commitment to his craft often came at personal and financial cost. His self-imposed exile from Ireland took him to cities like Trieste, Zurich, and Paris, where he struggled with poverty and deteriorating eyesight while devoting himself to his art. His final work, Finnegans Wake (1939), pushed the boundaries of language and narrative further, presenting a dreamlike, cyclical exploration of history, myth, and the unconscious.
Joyce’s relationship with Ireland was both loving and contentious. While his works immortalize Dublin and its inhabitants, his criticism of Irish nationalism and religion often alienated him from his contemporaries. Yet, he remains a towering figure in Irish literature, capturing the essence of his homeland with unparalleled depth and complexity.
Despite his avant-garde style, Joyce’s themes of love, loss, identity, and human connection resonate universally. His legacy as a literary innovator continues to inspire writers and scholars worldwide, affirming his place as a cornerstone of modernist literature. “The Twilight Turns” and “At That Hour,” both found below, are two of his better known poems.
The twilight turns from amethyst
To deep and deeper blue,
The lamp fills with a pale green glow
The trees of the avenue.
The old piano plays an air,
Sedate and slow and gay;
She bends upon the yellow keys,
Her head inclines this way.
Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands
That wander as they list — –
The twilight turns to darker blue
With lights of amethyst.
At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise?
When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is overgone?
Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow
At that hour when soft lights come and go,
Soft sweet music in the air above
And in the earth below.
In the big, open cemetery
I walk among the tombstones
in the daylight, soft hands
scraping along the grainy granite tops
of the taller head-masts.
So many rocks here
in the big cemetery,
so many rocks
cut-carved to some undeniable perfection
of geometry,
as if they never could have been anything else,
as is shape itself simply and quietly slipped into destiny.
It’s not amazing or frightening,
thinking of being with them one day,
a common joiner of the ethereal club,
another simple member of the dirt and the dead.
Gives me peace,
knowing to enter endless
will be a time of together,
not friendless, not alone,
but of ubiquitous,
among the great, vast universal bind—
electric-warm handshake within the greatness
of ever-expanse . . .
. . . that will again wake me
in a flash of my birth.
Then, one day
again I will roam ‘n toss among the tombstones, say, “ . . .
Who knows?
since something else then I’ll be—
perhaps a flit of wings
—suddenly,
I’ll hear.
You, hold out you hand—
It’s forever still in time
that what handed this painted stay.
There is an ancient question that rises—
instilled universal in the infinite bind
as that, all that will come to matter.
You, holding out your hand,
Sense what, Feel what,
that what mattered summoned anew
the ancient question?
You who hold out you hand—
What touches back?
There is no forward, only
what you’ve touched
that touches back.
Sparks of Calliope 