Posts Tagged religion

There are many excellent sources for finding new poems and poets on the web. One of my favorite sites, and a frequent stop for me, is the Poetry magazine website. That is where I found this poem by Spenser Reese.

Googling Reese,  I was un-surprised to discover that he had studied theology. From this poem I would have guessed as much… indeed, I would have been surprised to find that he had not. It is, after all, a religious poem written by one with enough sense and background to take the themes raised seriously.

It is a fine poem with the exception of one line, one metaphor that I do not particularly like:”little milky crosses grow like teeth”. I think if he could rework this one line, it would would be a much better poem… at least to me.

Metaphors and similes are one of the basic “tools of the trade” to poets. They can be familiar, novel, complicated, simple, extended, direct, or some combination of all of those things. But in end they need to convey, as exactly as possible, what it is the poet is trying to convey… NOT detract from it.

While I do not wholly subscribe to Eliot’s notion of the objective correlative, I believe that there does exist for words, symbols, metaphors, and phrases a duplexity of meanings that really do need to be respected. That is to say, some words and metaphors should never, ever be placed together because the weight and freight of their many meanings can not co-exist by definition. I would respectfully submit that the three words “milk, crosses, and teeth” are three such words. Putting them together in a clumsy, unworkable metaphor disfigures an otherwise fine poem. But, to quote Dennis Miller, “Then again… I could be wrong.”

Backyard Saint (copyright © m.a.h. hinton)

When I began MontanWriter a year and a half ago, I had in my mind two vague notions. One, I wanted to create a space to think and write about poetry and literature. That, for better or worse, I have accomplished.

The second idea I had was to create a space to “think theologically” about  culture, art, politics, poetry, literature and the world. That part of the original vision for MontanaWriter, I have struggled with mightily.

The reason for this is quite simple: in the modern American context religious and political polarizations seem to lead inevitably to shouting matches, invectives, and hurt feelings. I have within my concentric and inter-connecting circles of friends, coworkers, and acquaintances: conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, Fox News watchers and Fox News detractors, conservative Catholics and conservative Evangelicals, Agnostics and Atheists. I value and like most all of them.

Writing about poetry will never be controversial except to a few other poets. No one emails me to challenge my views on MFA programs and writing schools, or my insistence that meaning does not matter in poetry. Yet I know that writing about things religious and political would inevitably change all of that. And so each post that has led in that direction has gotten erased and replaced with something more palatable.

In the end, I do not mind offending people I do not know. What difference does it make really if those who have never met me think highly or poorly of me. What I do mind is offending those whom I know and value.

And yet… I know in my heart of hearts that that is not enough of a reason to hold my tongue….

In my mind I draw a sharp distinction between “thinking biblically” and “thinking theologically.” While protestant theologians and pastors are often enjoining their followers to “think biblically” I have come to suspect that that is exactly the problem facing religion and politics in America…. indeed the world. People are only capable of “thinking textually” any more. Textual literalness limited by contextual relativism by liberals and conservatives, atheists and evangelicals, Islamic extremist and secular humanist is ultimately the cause of most of the problems in the world today. Another way of saying this is: It is not religion that causes wars but bad religion, religious ignorance based in textual literalness and contextual myopia by those who claim religiosity AND by those who claim no religiosity at all.

That is why thinking theologically matters. That is why truly using the ability to reason that God gave to us is the only way through the quagmire of thinking merely (and only) biblically, or koranically, or politically, or socioeconomically, or sexually, or situationally.

It is my hope that MontanaWriter can become a place for thinking theologically. Whether it does or not… only time will tell. In the meantime: Full steam ahead and let the consequences be damned!

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A page from MacLeish's Notebook

“What can be explained is not poetry.” W.B. Yeats

It is summer and my mind is wandering. I stand in front of my bookcase and pick up a volume of Archibald MacLeish that I first read 30 summers ago, when I was first in love with poetry… in love with love. I look at lines I underlined, notes I made, cross references I noted to other poets and poems. I read the lines I underlined out loud. My breath makes the same sounds my younger self once made… that MacLeish once made. I forget my restlessness.

MacLeish brings an intellect to his poetry that is impossible not to admire. Yet if you approach a MacLeish poem merely intellectually you will miss most of what makes him a great poet: his underlining emotive integrity. All poems after all (even those by intellects as great as MacLeish’s) begin as emotive moments.

“Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell” is a prime example of what makes MacLeish a great poet: his textual duplexity. (“Textual Duplexity” may not be a real term, but I like like it anyway… it gets as close to what I mean as any term I can think of.) The prosaic argument that the poem makes is straight forward. But the poetic heart of the poem is not an idea but an emotion. Indeed, if the poem was merely a discussion of the relationship between science and religion it would be neither a poem nor unforgettable. It is the integrity of emotion that makes this a good poem… that makes it unforgettable. That make you stand 30 years later speaking the words into the air as if your life depended on it.

Enjoy!

Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell
Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.

She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.

Why should she? Her religion is to tell
By rote her rosary of perfect answers.
Metaphysics she can leave to man:
She never wakes at night in heaven or hell

Staring at darkness. In her holy cell
There is no darkness ever: the pure candle
Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.

Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!
She will not touch it!–knows the world she sees
Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect!

And still he offers the sea shell . . .

What surf
Of what far sea upon what unknown ground
Troubles forever with that asking sound?
What surge is this whose question never ceases?

_____

by William Blake

Milton wrote this poem in 1629 at the age of 21. It is often considered his first great poem in English. It is poetically and theologically pure Milton. It is also the best Christmas poem ever written.

For almost 30 years now, I have re-read this poem on Christmas Eve. It is as close to a personal Christmas tradition as I have… one of a few literary/faith disciplines I keep.

These lines in particular are some of my favorite lines anyone has ever written. They are an example of what makes Milton to my mind the greatest poet of the English language.

But peaceful was the night,
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whisp’ring new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

“On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” is admittedly a very long poem. At first I thought I would just post a few of my favorite stanza’s here, but I have change my mind. The stanzas can best be appreciated only within the context of the whole poem. And when a poem is this great, it is worth all the time and space you can give to it.

Finally, a note about Blake’s drawing that accompanies this posting. Poet and artist William Blake believed that Milton was the greatest of all poets. He created a number of illustrations for Milton’s work, along with illustrations for his own work. The illustration posted here was done in particular to accompany “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.”

I wish to all my readers, a joy-filled Christmas. May we all experience the Incarnation in our lives and in our world.

Merry Christmas.

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity

I

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside, and, here with us to be,
Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV

See how from far upon the Eastern road
The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!
Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

The Hymn

I

It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature, in awe to him,
Had doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.

II

Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

III

But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready Harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

IV

No war, or battail’s sound,
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
The hookèd chariot stood,
Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And Kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

V

But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began.
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kissed,
Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

VI

The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence,
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII

And, though the shady gloom
Had given day her room,
The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
And hid his head of shame,
As his inferior flame
The new-enlightened world no more should need:
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.

VIII

The Shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they than
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below:
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

IX

When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was by mortal finger strook,
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringèd noise,
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

X

Nature, that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round
Of Cynthia’s seat the airy Region thrilling,
Now was almost won
To think her part was done,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.

XI

At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;
The helmèd Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s newborn Heir.

XII

Such music (as ’tis said)
Before was never made,
But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII

Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort of the angelic symphony.

XIV

For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;
And speckled Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions of the peering day.

XV

Yes, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;
And Mercy set between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

XVI

But wisest Fate says No,
This must not yet be so;
The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss,
So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first, to those chained in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

XVII

With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
The aged Earth, aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake,
When, at the world’s last sessiön,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII

And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
The Old Dragon under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX

The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
Will hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,
Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.

XX

The lonely mountains o’er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
Edgèd with poplar pale,
From haunted spring, and dale
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

XXI

In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII

Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-battered god of Palestine;
And moon&egraved Ashtaroth,
Heaven’s Queen and Mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine:
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

XXIII

And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals’ ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

XXIV

Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,
The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.

XXV

He feels from Juda’s land
The dreaded Infant’s hand;
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.

XXVI

So, when the Sun in bed,
Curtained with cloudy red,
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to the infernal jail,
Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,
And the yellow-skirted Fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

XXVII

But see! the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest,
Time is our tedious song should here have ending:
Heaven’s youngest-teemèd star
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.

_____

John Milton

On a Sunday morning John Milton seem appropriate. The problem with Milton though is that he intimidates: for the sheer size of his magnus opus, Paradise Lost; for his enormous influence on English poetry; for his unabashed and confounding faith; for his undeniable perfection of poetic language and musicality. For all these reasons and a score more, Milton intimidates to the point of scaring erstwhile readers away.

The best place to begin with Milton is to begin with some of his small poems. And there is no better small poem to begin with than “On his Blindness.” Here we are introduced to the “human-side” of Milton… the man himself, not merely the great poet.

On the Second Sunday in Advent, a poem about faith and waiting seems very timely indeed.

On His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

_____