L.L. here. With a true confession. I love poetry. Adore it. Wish that someone would read it to me by moonlight. (All right, fair enough. That’s not much of a confession. Most of you probably already suspected my passion for the poetic.)
Anyway, personal affection aside; I’m not here to talk about poetry in private. I’m here to discuss public displays of affection. Poetry in church, in classrooms, at presidential inaugurations, in newspapers and, heck, even on blog network front pages.
Why bother making space for poetry in public?
Former State poet Samuel Hazo observes that poetry “tells us who we are, what our surroundings mean to us and what waits to be discovered beneath the apparent.” He contrasts this to the language of economy (think terms like profit, loss, consumer, value, spend, sell, bottom-line, assets ); such language tends to become “the language of quantity, not quality– the language of abstraction and generality and not the language of felt thought.”
Talk this way too long, says Hazo, and we risk personal dullness or even large-scale inhumanity.
(Maybe that’s why God’s Word is so astonishingly poetic. After all, it seeks to tell us who we are, what the world means, what the mystery of the divine is beneath the surface of life and language. Plus, God is anything but dull or inhumane.)
So then. Let me speak with the tongue of poetry, in public, by quoting poetic blogger Lore of Just to Say. I happened to read this the same day I was gaping at pictures of Gaza on the front page of the New York Times. Lore’s poetic words helped me move past the abstractions and generalities, the large-scale pain, and inhabit the grief of this tragedy…
Today I fumble with excuses, mine, theirs, ours. They feel like gravel in my mouth and I repeat them, sure that repetition will make them more palatable.
We were not made for this, I finally land on. This, I know deep within me, is the only truthful excuse.
We were not made for this pain or this reminder. We were not built to be so resilient. We were not created to block these blows, holding out arms in defense. We were made for the shelter of wings and garden gates and fruit kept far away. We were made to endure pain like soldiers, but not for it….
We weren’t designed for this…
Read Lore’s full post here if you like. And don’t be shy about clapping or sighing. This is, after all, a public display of affection for poetry. Or, in her case, for poetic prose.
The Duck Contingent photos, by Ann Voskamp of Holy Experience. See the awesome original full-size photos here.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for this post. I especially appreciated the info on LORE. i was not familiar with this site, but how powerful. the images are astounding. the sickness over the brokenness of the world (“were were not made for this” & “gravel in the mouth”) reminded me of elie wiesel’s memoir “Night,” where one of the characters is said to have had the taste of ashes in his mouth over the execution of a prisoner.
your reference to the church + poetry stuck a chord as well, especially the prophets of the hebrew bible whose poetry call us to see reality in a new way, or at least a different way. walter brueggemann’s book, “finally comes the poet ” speaks to this idea most clearly.
“beneath the apparent…”
Thank you, as always, for unearthing good stuff, L.L. … like Lore’s good, good words…
Blessings on your 2009…
All’s grace,
Ann
she’s a good writer, l.l.
i hope you feature her again.
Ann, that was one of my favorite lines from Hazo too. It means, as you and I have been discussing (remember Sayers?) that one must not only be present at an event but be present at an event, truly experience it. Blessings on your 2009 too! : )
Sam… isn’t she? I have no doubts that we’ll see her here again.
Yes-Most excellent! I would gladly add my name to any petition supporting ‘public displays of affection for poetry’ .
Wonderful. The end especially spoke to me:
“And so we lift our eyes, for two thousand years more, and listen, try to hear what comes upon a midnight clear. What comes so small, so discarded, so Holy. What comes to do what He was meant to do and does it fully. And so we wait for that day, that eternal day, when we will all wake from death and this constant pursuit of holiness.
And hear the angels sing.”
It is hard to be here on this spinning globe…and yet also somehow, already, to be There as well…for we are hidden in Christ as well, in Heaven, in a sense. We straddle both, no? And that makes it even harder in some ways. And yet, it also truly fills us with hope and endurance.
Living in the Now, and the Not Yet,
Sharaya
PS. L.L., love your reference to Sayers. Our family are classical, Christian education revolutionaries.
Beautiful writing…such truth, and she sums up what is simmering inside us so well. Not made for this, that displaced feeling that dogs us, so simply put into words.
Mark P., your reference to Night resonates. One of my favorite books. I can still see Juliek’s violin crushed, and hear the notes lingering from the night before. Oh, and that WB book sounds good. Something for my wishlist.
Tammy, in a way you’re signing the petition right here by commenting. : )
Sharaya, yes it is a challenge to be in two places at once. Yes. (Now, you must make the connection for me between Sayers and classical education. I should know this, but I don’t.
Erica… she has the mark of a poet in that way, yes?
L. L. (and everyone!),
My pleasure! Sayers wrote a great essay in 1947 called “The Lost Tools of Learning.” Here is the essay and I highly recommend it:
http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html
Sayers’ essay and the book “Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning” by Douglas Wilson (1991) have been, as I understand it, at the forefront of the revival of classical, Christian education in the USA, both in the private school and home-schooling sectors. Wilson’s book was instrumental in the formation of ACCS, the Association of Classical Christian Schools. Wilson is currently a faculty member at New Saint Andrews College, a classical, Christian college which he founded. He also founded Logos School in the 80’s (KG-12). I have actually met him (and other leaders in “the movement,” if you will, from Veritas Academy/Press) and discussed classical, Christian education when I served as President of the Board of my children’s classical, Christian school. While I don’t agree with Wilson on every point, his interpretation and application of Sayers’ principles have been instrumental, if not critical, for many.
Wilson and others were inspired by Sayers and thus the neo-classical, Christian movement was born in the USA.