The Remnant's Poetry Corner

Psalter: A Sequence of Catholic Sonnets

by William Baer

Reviewed for The Remnant by Andrew Senior My father used to say that, as a general rule in literature, a hundred years is a good place to draw a line. Anything newer than that may turn out to be good, but it hasn’t passed the test of time yet.

As with most rules, however, there are some happy exceptions. I believe he would agree that one of these is this collection of sonnets by William Baer.

Most moderns, and even a lot of traditionalists, will say that we cannot go back, that an old form cannot be resuscitated, and that to try to do so is anachronistic. New forms, they say, are needed for new times. While there is some truth to what they say, I don’t think anyone is currently composing like Chaucer in Middle English. Nonetheless there are certain forms which are timeless, and the sonnet is one of them.

The iambic pentameter and the dactylic hexameter will never cease to be, even though in modern times what is called poetry has descended into sentimental nonsense. And while it would be foolish, let alone impossible, to attempt by slavish imitation to recreate exactly what Shakespeare did, it is still possible to give new life to an old form, and this is precisely what William Baer has attempted. In the same way that a family line is not diminished but increased by having more children, so these new sonnets have kept the form alive and vigorous.

Although it is a collection of poems, this might also be called a book of prayers or meditations; his sonnets are based on the Bible, all the way from Genesis to the Apocalypse. They comprise a brief compendium of salvation history.

Pharaoh He breathes the blackness of perpetuant night where nothing is seen, where nothing can be done, where darkness obliterates every trace of light: "What kind of god could blot away the sun?"

Three days ago, when Moses cast his spell, the locusts whirled into the seas forever, but when the Pharaoh was firm, the blackness fell.

No matter, he’ll never capitulate. Never.

"Father?’ He hears the frightened voice say. "I’m here."

Then the unseen little boy, his eldest one, comes forth, and sensing the child’s fear, he pulls him close and tightly holds his son, thinking, within their obsidian abyss,

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