'He has written of how the Roman Catholic faith he knew then, in childhood, was 'persistent as Achill rains' and associated with 'physical and spiritual endurance'. In his Artist’s Statement on the British Council website, he explains that he writes poetry and fiction to help him recover what he has 'lost, through personal experience, and through doubt and hesitations because of contemporary philosophies and events, in the area of faith' through his loss of affiliation with strict Catholicism. As a result, his work now 'is to re-locate, to re-name and to re-evaluate the Christian experience and values, not tied to any individual church or churches'. He writes 'to set the Christ-life echoing'...
With collections such as Irish Poetry of Faith and Doubt: The Cold Heaven, The Outlaw Christ and Darkness Between Stars, his own work, and his Faith and Poetry memoir Give Dust a Tongue, Deane has demonstrated the continuing relevance of a religious poetic which 'owns the power to grasp the timeless out of the temporal' and which, while insisting on the certainty of humanity’s 'insignificance in the immensity of this hostile universe, yet retains at least the questioning hope of transcendence'. His particular religious poetic is one built on the insights of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Simone Weil, Teilhard de Chardin and the Liberation Theologians.'
For more on John F. Deane click here.
My other reviews for Stride include a review of two poetry collections, one by Mario Petrucci and the other by David Miller, a review of Temporary Archive: Poems by Women of Latin America, a review of Fukushima Dreams by Andrea Moorhead, a review of Endangered Sky by Kelly Grovier and Sean Scully, and review of God's Little Angel by Sue Hubbard. To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'. Read my ArtWay interview with David Miller here.
Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at http://stridemagazine.co.uk.
I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a poetry reading when I was at St Stephen Walbrook.
Rupert Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction.
He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children).
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John F. Deane - Canticle.
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