The Beat: Mathias Svalina and Gerard Manley Hopkins

Mathias Svalina is the author of seven books. His most recent, America at Play (published by Trident Press), is a collection of absurdist instructions for children's games. His poetry collection Thank You Terror was published earlier this year, and his first short story collection, Comedy, is forthcoming soon. Svalina was a founding editor of Octopus Books. He’s led writing workshops in universities, libraries, community spaces, and in prison. Since 2014, he has run a dream delivery service, traveling around the country to write and deliver dreams to subscribers. Through the Dream Delivery Service, Svalina has worked with the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Poetry Foundation, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson.   

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in the London suburb of Stratford Essex in 1844. He studied classics at Balliol College in Oxford and theology at St. Beuno’s College in North Wales. He was ordained in 1877 as a Jesuit priest, and he served in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Stonyhurst. He also taught classics at Stonyhurst College and Greek literature at University College, Dublin. During his lifetime, most of Hopkins’ poems were read by only a few friends. In 1889, Hopkins died of typhoid fever, and he was buried in Dublin, Ireland. Hopkin’s first collection, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, was published in 1918.  

Links:

Read "Terrible Baby" by Mathias Svalina at The Tiny

Read "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection" by Gerard Manley Hopkins at Poets.org

Mathias Svalina

Mathias Svalina's website

Bio and poem at Poets.org

"Mathias Svalina-Dream Delivery Service" video by JustBuffalolLit

Mathias Svalina reads from "Thank You Terror" at the Silo City Reading Series

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Bio and poems at Poets.org

International Hopkins Society's website (poems, bio, study guides, video, etc).

Photo Credit: Dean Davis