Poetry’s Invitation

In the world I have known, poetry is appreciated, disparaged, or ignored—not necessarily in that particular order. I’d like to weigh in on the side of appreciation. I do so not because I am an expert on poetry, or adept at writing poems. If a poem insists on emerging from my pen or laptop, I tend to keep it under wraps.

I am positive about poetry because poems and poets have expanded my imagination. They have given me eyes to see things I might have missed and ears to hear music in speech. They have given me more creative ways to curse and to bless. They have connected me to life and experience beyond my purview or my expectations. When I want information, I can go to Wikipedia. If I want a new angle of vision, I read a poem.

There are times when some good lines of poetry may even come to the rescue. A number of years ago, when I was an active pastor serving a church in northern New Jersey, the local funeral director called me to say that some folks who were not members of our congregation were asking me to hold a funeral service for a family member.

Such calls were not unusual, so I readily consented. Our congregation had been planted in the community of Oakland, New Jersey in 1710. Sometimes  we joked that if folks were near enough to hear our church bell ringing when the wind was in the right direction, or drove past our building in the center of town at least three times a week, they considered themselves connected. We were pleased to be thought of as an integral and welcoming part of the community.

I met with the daughter of the woman who had died, to begin planning the service together. I was hoping to get some context and information that would enable me to prepare an appropriate homily. I was not prepared for the daughter’s assessment of her mother’s life:  “My mother had no redeeming qualities.”  A line like that either can be the end of the story or the beginning of one. I went on to learn that there had not been great abuse or neglect, but that the daughter resented what she considered her mother’s mis-managed life and was angry that her mother had squandered her daughter’s  anticipated inheritance.

Later that afternoon, I went for a long walk, pondering our visit and racking my brain for something meaningful to say at the service. Nothing was emerging, but I did find myself mindlessly humming a tune. I realized it was the tune to a hymn we sang in church, “How Clear is our Vocation Lord.”  When I got home, I immediately turned to that hymn and read words written by the great Fred Pratt Green.

“If worldly pressures fray the mind, and love itself cannot unwind its tangled skein of care: our inner life repair.  (Pg. 573, Worship and Rejoice)

In the service, these words became an opportunity to acknowledge our tangles, and to turn to God for help and healing. The poetic words of several psalms also made their contribution.  Poems may be more ubiquitous in our lives than we realize!

Speaking of poetry coming to the rescue, I can’t think of anything more dramatic than the story of the brilliant young French writer-thinker-activist Simone Weil.  She writes that while suffering one of her debilitating headaches, she took refuge in reciting George Herbert’s poem “Love.”   

She says that in that moment, “Christ himself came down and took possession of me. (Pg. 19,  Simone Weil, An Anthology).

George Herbert, the 17th century Anglican priest-poet, is one to whom I often turn for spiritual insight and nurture. Though I haven’t often quoted him in my sermons, I can’t get through a season of Lent without his deep wisdom and what I perceive as the most authentic piety I have come across. Herbert’s priest-poet vocation is captured in a smile as he writes,

“A verse may find him, who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice. (Pg. 121, The Temple, George Herbert).

I’m also thinking of a fragile, home-bound elderly widow regularly included in my pastoral calling schedule. I was touched by her deep concern for the environment and her hospitality for all of God’s creatures. She fed the rabbits and squirrels, the bees and birds, the chipmunks and stray cats, as well as the deer. One day a snake showed up behind her kitchen table. Not wanting it to slither into her pantry, she gently held it in place with a kitchen broom while she called the police to come and place it in it’s outdoor habitat. I’m glad the police were available, because I think I might have been the next one on her list to call. I have been known to make pastoral calls to fix a toilet, but I draw the line at snakes.

Honoring her gracious spirit, in Advent I brought her a copy of Mary Oliver’s delightful poem: Making the House Ready for the Lord. It features a woman who opens her home to furry and feathered creatures as winter approaches.  A mouse and her children, a limping raccoon, ,a fox, a sparrow, and others. The last lines of the poem read:

“Know [Lord]That I am really speaking to you whenever I say,
As I do all morning and afternoon:  Come in, Come in.” (P. 13, Thirst, Mary Oliver)

The best inducement to appreciating poems is simply to start reading or listening to them. Another open sesame to this endeavor is Michael Schmidt’s book, Lives of the Poets. I find it of such value that I consider it to be one of the ten books I would wish to have with me if stranded on a deserted island. On a more existential level, I hope I can bring it with me if my future includes consignment to a room in a place with a name like Sunny Acres or Senior Haven.

Michael Schmidt’s book offers glimpses of the English speaking poets and samples of their work across seven centuries. In a chapter entitled “Tutelary Spirits,” he honors the impact of John Wycliffe’s early English translation of the Bible: 

“Our poetry starts when God and King David, the poet of Ecclesiastes and Job, Jesus and St. Paul speak English with resounding confidence.”      (Pg. 23, Lives of the Poets, Michael  Schmidt)

Lives of the Poets showers us with a blizzard of opinions, eschews caveats, and abounds in paradox.  Almost every one of its nearly one thousand pages has an arresting insight, helpful perspective, or startling conclusion. Above all, it will send you to poets waiting to meet you.

                              

Graffiti photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash