(By Helen Parsons) (Wakefield Press, 2026)
The Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell of the Christ in the wilderness. Luke 4:1-8, for example, in the King James version, reads:
And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
British post-impressionist artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), a somewhat obscure and sad little man, left his wife and two daughters in order to marry a lesbian who declined to consummate the marriage and persuaded him to sign over to her the title deed to his house (from which he was later evicted). Stuck in a squalid bedsit and alone, he found inspiration to create a series about a historical figure, also lost and alone, namely the 40 days Jesus fasted in the wilderness (one of various precursors to Lent). He meant to create 40 works to match the days but only finished 8.
Wedding from Hell
In Being a Creature, poet Helen Parsons traverses and investigates Spencer’s Christ in the Wilderness series in eight separate homages, plus a prologue and epilogue, that beautifully (dare one say, miraculously) encapsulate the paintings (interleaved with the poems), and combine the various meanderings of the subject with the depth for feeling of both subject and artist. Written in scrupulous free verse that scans perfectly, with nice use of enjambment.
Some of our favourite lines:
“Meanwhile beyond his room a new war
looms and then begins. He’s not the only one
who’s made a mess of things.” [‘Prologue’]
“Perplexity is the path we travel on.” [‘Driven’]
“Stunted trees stand sparse on barren hills.
Christ steps across a ditch. He grasps a branch
to keep his balance, haul himself along.
I recognise the warrior pose I practise
in my yoga, in my life. It comforts me
to see his awkwardness, his firm resolve.” [‘Driven’]
“Here Christ confronts the world as abattoir.
He’s right down on the stony barren ground
where eagles tear the flesh from a dead deer….
Spencer was down there too. He’d been
betrayed, and he had torn his family apart.
Deer and eagle, he was both of these.” [Eagles’]
To be quite honest, the paintings were, for this reader, an acquired taste. I was ignorant of them until I read this book. Perhaps they struck me initially as too much Arthur Boyd for my taste; perhaps it was the lingering disappointment with the WA Art Gallery, that houses the paintings (we’re informed; there was no sign of them when I went there last year). Yet the poems helped me return to the paintings and realise what Spencer was trying to do. In his time of personal trial, he got succour from the legendary struggles of Jesus and at the same time he managed to show us a man as much as a prophet. And in a three-cornered synthesis (one might hazard τριάς if one had ancient Greek) Ms. Parsons offers this personal insight:
“His Jesus kneels before a block of stone.
He puts his hands together like a child
and gazes upward, childlike, questioning.
I wonder whether Spencer looked like this
in this beleaguered period of his life.
It’s how I often see my father look,
as he waits in his armchair in the Home,
his memory shot and no release in sight.” [‘Prayer’]
There is nothing ‘thin’ about this slim volume. Its concision masterfully conceals a rich and thoughtful reflection of how we all think and feel, when alone, when looking back in anguish, when facing the future with fear, and when having those snatches of joy in the everlasting present.
The Poet
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