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Poets were my first priests, and poetry itself my first altar. -Mary Karr
Since the Enlightenment Era we've been very busy pursuing knowledge--and correspondingly with arguing over which group has cornered the market on getting-it-right. Now that we've moved into a post-enlightenment, post-modern millennium, many of us are realizing that facts are slippery creatures. Suddenly our perspectives shift and we see that what is true for you is so very often not true for me...or the other way around...or both things in the same breath-taking moment.
In a post-modern world fact is not quite as valued as it once was. Not because we are throwing away the scientific method, or tossing our collective hat in with the nihilists. But because a global world with its widening values and intricate networks of moral norms requires that many things take on a new level of ambiguity. Within that ambiguity we need forms of communication which will allow things to be fuzzy around the edges. This is why I believe you have to use art to preach.
Art, open for interpretation and rife with semi-permeable membranes of meaning, allows us to live within the fuzzy edges of post-modern life without feeling adrift from our center. It fits our current way of living so much more so than "ten of this" or "seven steps to that". Which is one of the reason why poetry, for so many people right now, is prayer.
Everywhere I look writers of heart and spirit are making new poetry--or discovering and re-discovering old poetry. These words, loosed from the structure of prose, have become our litany. Rumi is on all my friend's bulletin boards, and if you look closely you'll probably find Hafiz, and Gibran as well. Anais Ninn is making the rounds, ee cummings has laid out his calling card, and I'm pretty sure Mary Oliver is getting a lot of text messages.
I'm am not very well educated in regards to poetry. In reading great works, lines which are even a little obtuse tend to escape my notice. But even with my undeveloped palate, when I read something like this I know my heart has come home:
we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings...
you have a drum in your chest that can save us...
These are the stirring words of Andrea Gibson, brought to us via Crunchy on the Inside. Gibson is an award winning slam poet who's spoken word burns like distilled passion. To me, many of her poems are prayers: prayers of hope, like Say Yes; and prayers for healing like Blue Blanket. I'm so grateful to her for her bravery and raw courage, and Ms. J at Crunch for pointing me Gibson's way.
Speaking of Crunchy on the Inside, this terrific blogger has been kind enough of late to point us to Patti Digh of 37 Days, who in turns points us to Alison Luterman. Her poem Invisible Word rings true as a prayer begging for just a little recognition, please, of all the women who do the silent work of everyday life without notice or reward:
Because no one could ever praise me enough,
because I don't mean these poems only,
but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,
I think all the time about invisible work.
Also in the poetic atmosphere is Christine Valters Paintner, who continues to bring out poets and prayers over at Abbey of the Arts. This week she's hosting her 18th Poetry Party where bloggers are invited to submit a themed poetic meditation and quite possibly win a prize. And speaking of great poets, Christine offers us a purse-sized collection of some of the greatest in her four-seasons prayer cards. One of the cards Christine sent me last year is now one of my favorite prayers of blessing, which I frequently offer to others:
A poet is someone
who can pour light
into a cup
then raise it to nourish
your beautiful, parched, holy mouth.-Hafiz
Still feel kind of sheepish calling an hour with your favorite poet an hour of prayer? Try reading Peggy Rosenthal's post at Image Journal where she quotes Edward Hirsch as saying:
Serious poetry seeks the transformation both of the speaker of the poem and the reader waiting somewhere
