Jubilate Agno

Today, the Writer's Almanac reminds us, is the birthday of

the poet Christopher Smart, ... born in Shipbourne, Kent, England (1722). He's the author of the epic poem Jubilate Agno, written around 1763, which went on for hundreds of pages, in which Smart attempted to praise God for every single aspect of his life, including his cat Jeoffry.

I love Smart's poem about his cat, and find Smart's life fascinating. You can read a portion of the poem at Christopher Smart, "on his cat Jeoffrey," from Jubilate Agno:

Christopher Smart, who was tossed in the madhouse for his incessant praying (in the street, for the most part), constantly asks what creativity is, what rationality and irrationality are. His poems let loose a portion of the imagination which the age of reason makes a point of keeping fettered with social norms and conventional religion; in this way his raptures are related to the scenes of redemptive or escapest madness we see in the literature of Sensibility ...

[poetry cats creativity]

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