Abstract

What kind of language might reach and shape readers for revolution — where ‘revolution’ is revealed in the divine humanity of Christ? This essay considers this question as it was pursued in the journal of the Catholic Left, Slant, between 1960 and 1970. Considering how far the attempt to think a specifically catholic poetics might depart from contemporary radical English thinking, specifically the New Left, I begin by exploring the ways in which key words, such as language, liturgy and literature, are transformed when they enter the Catholic debate. I go on to explore these concerns by considering two poems from 1967-8. Throughout, I am concerned with the question of how far the cultural programme of Slant might be said to have a poetics, a question which prompts us to consider our ambitions for how we read and write today.