Austin gives poetic recitation of Hopkins Poetry

Home Culture Austin gives poetic recitation of Hopkins Poetry

Wednesday night, March 19, Phillips Auditorium was once again awash with the sounds and rhythm of spoken poetry. Richard Austin, British actor and performer, entranced audiences both young and old with the spirited poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins rivaling his performance last Spring.

“Absolutely marvelous performance,” Assistant Professor of English Dutton Kearney said. “Just really entertaining.”

Kearney attended both of Austin’s performances with two of his children and commented on how accessible Hopkin’s rich verse becomes when channeled through Austin.

“I really was thinking this is going to be a hard sell, taking children to listen to poetry. I know I teach poetry for a living, but sometimes you don’t know how well it’s gonna go over,” he said. “They loved it.”

Austin has been bringing the 19th-century Jesuit priest’s work to the stage for more than a decade. He is internationally renowned and has spoken everywhere from Ireland to Rome to Hillsdale. Lecturer in English, Nicole Coonradt explains that Austin sees his spoken poetry as a vocation.

“What’s really awesome is that he has probably at least 50 poems memorized, including the long Shipwreck poems, and he pretty much just knows the rest of it,” she said. “And he’s always adding, memorizing new ones. So he’s kind of like a walking concordance. He can read one poem and hear particular language use, so he is able to make connections among things that other people –– even people who are really good scholars and know Hopkins –– don’t because they’re not that close to it.”

Austin said his recitation is a work in progress when audience members asked why his performance of certain poems has changed since last spring.

“If you are working on something of lesser quality you might find that you’ve squeezed all the juice out of the poetry by the time you’ve been working on it for as long as I have,” he said. “But 10 years along, I’m still finding fresh things in [Hopkin’s poetry]. I’m still finding new and exciting insights.”

Hopkin’s poetry is known for its use of word imagery and his specific type of rhythm called “sprung rhythm.” This type of poetic rhythm lends itself to a spoken performance rather than a quiet reading, and this became most apparent to Austin when he began reading Hopkin’s work.

“I just fell completely in love with the sound of these words,” he said. “And not just the way they sound as they come out, but the way they feel in my mouth as I say them. I was filled up with it. I was nourished in a way that I didn’t understand, and I think there’s something there that has been lost. It’s what Hopkins is talking about when he says he wants these poems to be heard.”

Richard Austin will teach a masterclass on how to read and recite poetry Thursday, March 20 from 4 to 5 p.m., and he will also be leading a workshop on reciting poetry March 31, from 3 to 5 p.m.