Abstract
Janet Morley,
Haphazard by Starlight: A Poem a Day from Advent to Epiphany
, SPCK: London, 2013; 142 pp.: 9780281070626, £9.99 (pbk)
This is Janet Morley’s second collection of this kind. It takes the reader through each day from the beginning of December to the feast of the Epiphany with a poem, some pages of reflection and questions to consider. It is written with individuals in mind, but there are also suggestions for ways in which the book could be used by a group. The poems are by well-known writers, from George Herbert to Sylvia Plath, from Rowan Williams to Ruth Fainlight and more besides.
Read at one sitting this was too much to take in at once, and I can imagine how it could better feed the hungry soul on a daily pilgrimage through a wintry Advent and a reflective Christmas, taken a day at a time. What Janet Morley does so very effectively is to enable the reader to pay attention to each of these poems and to catch nuances, hints, themes and images that might otherwise be missed. She has a real gift for illuminating poetry and for helping a reader to notice things, without ever drawing attention to her own cleverness. She simply shines a light for us on each poem and guides us as we read. I thought I was a careful reader, but again and again there were things I hadn’t seen and connections I hadn’t made, even (though now I think of it perhaps especially) in the poems I’d read before. Janet Morley is a gentle interpreter, inviting thought, but not coercing or spoiling. I felt in safe hands and to be with a wise companion reader from whom I could gladly learn much. I noticed that she was equally skilled in bringing insight from the background and context of a poem, the time it was written and the concerns of the author, as also in bringing insight from the text itself, from the language and the structure, the use of words and images and shape. She seemed an interpreter with no axe to grind, but only a delight in opening a text and enabling us to read it better.
I was left with some questions. I wondered whether there might have been room for some poems that might have been less ‘high culture’ and perhaps more accessible for some readers. And sometimes I thought the questions for us to think about at the end of each chapter seemed somehow less sharply focused and demanding than the poems and the commentary merited. But that reveals the depth of thinking in her commentary. My regret was that she hadn’t supplied, with each section, a prayer, since I know how well she can use the English language, with simplicity and beauty. Perhaps she feared using prayer to reinforce an interpretation – I can only guess. But I found myself beginning to frame prayers myself after each reading. Again, that reveals the power of her commentary.