Dispatches for the Colonial Office: If We are a School of Poetry Then When is Recess?

Saturday, June 27, 2026

Lawrence Hall

If We are a School of Poetry, Then When is Recess?

…what we mean to establish is a school for the Lord’s service

-St. Benedict’s prologue to his Rule

1997 English edition, Ampleforth Abbey

When a poet consecrates a poem

(Which is in the nature of what poets do)

And a soul-friend breathes beauty into it

Then they have formed a school of poetry

Which is not a school for the Lord’s service

Except that it is – all this shifting of words

From chaos into meaning and purpose and love

Is a school of life, only without the home-room pledge

(or morning Mass or a chemistry lab)

We write in procession through cloisters of hope

To elevate each other as presentations of truth

Dispatches for the Colonial Office