How did a Catholic priest who died a failure become one of the worlds greatest poets Discover in his own words the struggle for faith that gave birth to some of the best spiritual poetry of all time.Gerard Manley Hopkins deserves his place among the greatest poets in the English language. He ranks seventh among the most frequently reprinted Englishlanguage poets surpassed only by Shakespeare Donne Blake Dickinson Yeats and Wordsworth.Yet when the English Jesuit priest died of typhoid fever at age fortyfour he considered his life a failure. He never would have suspected that his poems which would not be published for another twentynine years would eventually change the course of modern poetry and influence such poets as W. H. Auden Dylan Thomas Robert Lowell John Berryman Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney. Like his contemporaries Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson Hopkins revolutionized poetic language.And yet we love Hopkins not only for his literary genius but for the hardwon faith that finds expression in his verse. Who else has captured the thunderous voice of God and the grandeur of his creation on the written page as Hopkins has Seamlessly weaving together selections from Hopkinss poems letters journals and sermons Peggy Ellsberg lets the poet tell the story of a lifelong struggle with faith that gave birth to some of the best poetry of all time. Even readers who spurn religious language will find in Hopkins a refreshing liberating way to see Gods hand at work in the world.