Poetry Art

Thoughts on Edwin Markham’s “Outwitted”

June 2022

Love seeks to unify.

“He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!”
(Edwin Markham, 1852-1940)

This epigram from American poet Edwin Markham appears in six different places through the Canyon and the Kerrville offices. Mary Holdsworth Butt’s Kerrville office is one of those places—an office that was also used by our president David Rogers for many years. Cabin 4 campers at Singing Hills are also used to seeing this quote on the wall.

Markham’s poem is a straightforward reminder that love seeks to unify. Unity is no accidental or easy task, though. Including others requires clever intent and a dash of ambition. Others may treat us as heretics, rebels, or enemies, yet we will respond in love.

Marcus Goodyear

Marcus Goodyear works as the senior director of communications and editor-in-chief of Echoes magazine. He has been with the Foundation since 2005. He is a Kerrville native, husband, and father of two, who loves poetry, the band Journey, and long runs in the Canyon. In his tenure with the H. E. Butt Foundation, Marcus has served in various positions, including director of the Foundation Archives and editor of The High Calling and Christianity Today’s Faith in the Workplace. His work has appeared in publications such as 32 Poems and Books and Culture (and oddly Zombies! the Magazine). His poetry collection Barbies at Communion was a finalist for Englewood Review’s Book of the Year.

More From this Issue