It's important to have a sense of what Gerard Manley Hopkins' life was like in his last years to understand why his poetry changed and became darker. He moved to Dublin to work as a teacher in 1884. He felt overworked, underappreciated, and was chronically physically unwell. His residence was in poor condition, dingy, cramped, and cold. The plumbing leaked, and the water sometimes became fouled—a problem that ultimately led to his death from typhoid in 1889.

"I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day" is one of the so-called Terrible Sonnets from this period of his life. This poem rises out of the dark night of the soul. There is no silver lining here. But perhaps there is a paradox to darkness. Sometimes In telling the darkness and leaving it as dark as it feels, the telling itself can be a light. And, like Hopkins, if we tell the darkness, we can sometimes find our way out of it, too.

Music from this episode was from EVOE, Diffie Bosman, Alon Peretz, Kyle Preston, and Jon Gegelman. Sound design and editing is by Nate Sheppard.

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