With Exiles, Ron Hansen tells the story of a notorious shipwreck that prompted Gerard Manley Hopkins to break years of “elected silence” with an outpouring of dazzling poetry. Hopkins was a Jesuit seminarian in Wales, and he was so moved by the news of the shipwreck that he wrote a grand poem about it, his first serious work since abandoning a literary career at Oxford to become a priest. He too would die young, an exile from the literary world. But as Hansen’s gorgeously written account of Hopkins’s life makes clear, he fulfilled his calling.
We'll be meeting to discuss this book on June 10th at the Main Library in Conference Rm 3 at noon. Feel free to bring a lunch.
We'll be meeting to discuss this book on June 10th at the Main Library in Conference Rm 3 at noon. Feel free to bring a lunch.