Poetics – THE QUALITY OF MERCY

2025-09-162025-09-20 by David Hughes

Ways of the Cross

Sometime in the winter of 1995/96 my friend and mentor Milania Austin Henley introduced me to the artwork of Michael Schrauzer who, like Milania, was associated with St. Andrew’s Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery at Valyermo. She did so through the “Journal of the Arts and Religion” called Image. Schrauzer’s work is formal, often housed in rich cabinets, yet inviting, contemplative. The Annunciation consists not of cabinetry but of interlocking frames: a gilt T—the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet—foreshadows the Cross; its setting sun smolders in the base of the letter’s upright, bisecting a white rose. It is almost cruel in its “truth, perfection, completion.”¹ It’s the obverse of Oscar Wilde, who describes his wonder at the, well, banality of this consequential moment.

Ave Maria Gratia Plena

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.

— Oscar Wilde, Vatican Gallery, Rome, 1877

2025-04-172025-04-17 by David Hughes

Dread Rhyme: Womb, Tomb

Many years ago my friend and mentor Milania Austin Henley shared with me a poem written by her friend Claudette Drennan Kane upon the death of her son in 1993. Last year, in this season—liturgical, historical—I was drawn to it again. At that time I contacted Claudette’s husband Robert Hilary Kane, without a reply. I recently learned that three weeks later he had died. (My attempt to reach their surviving son has failed. I of course will remove this post upon request.)

Every mother’s faith is pummelled by the death of a child, and this moment in time, like too many others, causes us consciousness. As Claudette writes, we witnesses die too.

2025-01-172025-03-03 by David Hughes

Sor Juana: Inquisitional minds want to know

I have Octavio Paz’s acclaimed biography of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz on my shelves, but I never read it. I saw the 1990 film adaptation—if one can compress a 547-page tome into a 105-minute film.² The IMDB précis is precise:

A 17th-century Mexican nun defies expectations, becoming a renowned intellectual and writer during the Spanish Inquisition. Her progressive ideas attract unwanted attention, forcing her to seek protection from an influential ally.

2022-12-222022-12-22 by David Hughes

Lessons and Carols

Three poems and two songs…

2022-07-302025-09-16 by David Hughes

Jim Morphesis: Conversations in Isolation

The sun will never disappear
But the world may not have many years

— John Lennon, “Isolation”

In the summer of 2020 I contacted visual artist Jim Morphesis to ask his permission to reprint his private reply to Rudy Perez in response to Part 2 of my Portrait of Rudy Perez series. Jim had reminded Rudy of how the two had met on July 24, 1981, when Rudy appeared on Rona Barrett’s television show.

2021-08-152022-01-20 by David Hughes

Delightfully Brutal

Saturday night, the Fall of Kabul, the Choppers of Cong, the mendacity of “Why didn’t we see this coming?” All I can think about is a poem I heard by chance on KPFK seventeen or eighteen years ago. Haunted then as I am now, remembering little, I wrote to the writer, Los Angeles poet Jan Wesley, asking for a copy.

2021-01-252025-09-06 by David Hughes

The Old Normal

I was annoyed Tuesday when the Biden-Harris tribute to the 400,000 fallen included that old, mm…, warhorse “Amazing Grace.” I muttered to my wife Andrea Carney, “Well, as long as they don’t trot out ‘Hallelujah’…,” which of course they did. “Amazing Grace” showed up time and again during the inaugural spectacle.

2020-04-062025-08-03 by David Hughes

Death be not proud: We’ve Been Here Before

There were varied responses to an earlier pandemic, and I first read the following poem in a 1989 collection, Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS. David Kalstone was James Merrill’s friend whose study of Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, and Robert Lowell was cut short by his death in 1986. Caro is an Italian endearment.

There were varied responses. What are our varied ways today? How to be in solidarity in a time of distancing?

2020-02-212025-08-04 by David Hughes

Symonds, Whitman, Rossetti and Rake

Before Christmas I checked out a book from my little public library branch: Naomi Wolf’s Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love. I had a lot of other things to read and left it for last, not knowing what it contained, vaguely recognizing the author’s name. Turning to it, I recognized Wolf’s photo. If nothing else, readers might remember her defense of Julian Assange when he was accused of sex crimes in Sweden. I thought the book would be a history of censorship, but it’s more comprehensive. By introducing and then returning often to her cast of characters, Wolf creates an intimate narrative against the mise en scène of her historical sweep and sociopolitical stance.

2019-11-142025-08-05 by David Hughes

Falling Awake: Joseph Shuldiner (1957–2019)

Yesterday my friend and collaborator Rob Berg messaged me that my old, dear friend Joseph Shuldiner died. Of a brain tumor. It’s a cruel joke: I’m the one bingeing on cheddar cheese, and last week I was told to go on statins.

My heart goes out to his spouse Bruce Schwartz, his sister Judy, and to all he’s touched.

Joseph and I go a long way back, but hadn’t corresponded for several years. Looking for a photograph last night I came upon a half-dozen file folders containing the following mementos.