Dappled

Poetry Comics Month, Day 4

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One of my favorite poets is Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Victorian-era priest who sang the praises of the world. His language is exuberant, overflowing—often with made-up words. It’s as if the English dictionary was too small to contain his insights.

Here’s a famous poem by Hopkins that helped inspire the poetry comic above:

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.

Incredible. “Spring and Fall” is another one of my favorites. I borrowed his words “wanwood” and “goldengrove” for settings in the novel-in-verse I’m currently writing. And I hope to feature the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins in a future edition of Words of Wonder.

This month I’ll be posting daily poetry comics to my Substack Notes. You can follow along and draw your own with these prompts:

If you’re inspired to make your own poetry comics, please post them and tag me; I’m on facebook and tumblr @incidentalcomics and on instagram and twitter @grantdraws.

To read more poetic comics, check out my latest books POETRY COMICS and THE ART OF LIVING.