Claude Wilkinson Selected Works

Two excerpts from spirituals, offered as epigraphs, foreshadow themes in Soon Done with the Crosses. The first song, “One of These Days,” suggests inevitable burdens that all of us must bear at some point, while the second song, “Do Lord,” supposes a glorious reward for those who faithfully endure. The poems in this book form a catalog of varied trials—both historical and contemporary—drawn from art, imaginings, the natural world, and aspects of the human condition, coupled with questions about eternity. Though while the collection begins with pleas for some bright assurance, it concludes in yet another vigil through dark, lonely hours, longing for morning’s clarifying light.

Claude Wilkinson’s fourth poetry collection takes its title from the last words of the Gloria Patri. But the preceding words—“as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be”— also echo the book’s overarching theme: the seemingly infinite spiritual implications woven throughout our experience in the natural world.

Similar to Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, poems that compose the sections of Claude Wilkinson’s Marvelous Light explore nature’s cycles with respect to their parallels of, and import to, our human lives. Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione, or The Contest between Harmony and Invention, a title under which Vivaldi’s work was first published, suggests part of an overarching theme that is implicit within Wilkinson’s collection—that is to say, his poems strive for a balance of euphony and the revelation of artistic rigor. Epigraphs from 1 Peter 2:9 and Henry James’s “The Middle Years” serve to enlighten readers as they read the poems that also image divinity’s role in the creative process.

Joy in the Morning alludes to Psalm 30:5: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

These poems ultimately point to the inherent rewards of continuation and survival, as the Scripture suggests, while they also pun on the words morning/mourning to reveal ways in which joy can be found even amid suffering. The sure joy Claude Wilkinson offers readers is this: nature's delicate details and memory's refining power. Tender, astonishing depictions—of an iridescent beetle, a jazz funeral, rural poverty transformed by a mother's love—carry the theme in lyrical form. Joy in the Morning are poems of strong emotion and exquisite artistry.