I once read a long article about two remarkable books: “The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins,” published by the Clarendon Press in Oxford, and “The Early Poetic Manuscripts and Note-Books of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile,” published by Garland in New York. I admire and rejoice in the poetry of Hopkins. A few of his poems are of an astonishing, imperishable beauty: I not only never get tired of reading them but each time I read one of these poems it seems quite new, different and better, more fully charged with the inexplicable wonder of what genius can do with words. If you have not ever read Hopkins go immediately to the National Library and discover him – ok probably I should say go and google him. Even the ordinary letters he wrote are full of extraordinary glimpses of truth and beauty in life.
