The vocation of language
the vocation of community
Dear friends:
I hope this letter finds you well.
I keep a small collection of how people finish off the line “Poetry is …”
Krista brought Michael Longley’s quote to my attention: “Poetry is about all the things that happen to people. War is one of them.” Not quite the exact same line, but something similar was when the Scottish poet Don Paterson said, “A poem is a little machine for remembering itself.”
Jackie Kay, a former Makar (Scottish National Poet) said, “Poetry is the art of being human” at the Solas festival one year when I was there.
I don’t look for the definition; rather, I look for how the event of poetry lands in language and description. The extraordinary theologian Walter Brueggemann died this week at the age of 92. His was a life lived in devotion to poetry: the poetry of justice as found in the writing of the Hebrew Bible prophets. He insisted that most of what the prophets did was to “make up” language and place it in the “mouth” (forgive the anthropomorphism) of God.
And in honouring the creative and imaginative impulse behind such audacious poetry-making, Brueggemann honoured the world-making possibility in words used well. Krista’s interview with him will be rebroadcast in the next weeks on the On Being feed; look out for it, or subscribe to The Pause newsletter to get a notification.
One of the things I always liked about his approach to language is that it is work: work to speak up, work to hold fast to what matters, work to remain faithful to what is essential. When listening to him, it was irrelevant to me whether I was part of the fold of religious belief or not. What mattered was the belief in the power of language used well — sometimes direct; sometimes subtle; sometimes cunning; sometimes clear. He was a poet with words to say about empire, knowing that often the clearest thing we can do is to raise our voices in generative art.
This quote from his timeless text The Prophetic Imagination has been on my mind this week:
“It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”
And who is the prophet? Whomever sees the present with a generous imagination.
My question this week is this: What (or who) is helping you act and speak and think and imagine generously?
I’ll see you in the comments.
PS: One newly-scheduled event, plus two links: I’ll be giving an online talk/poetry reading titled “Hell is Other People” on the 17th of June. And two Australian podcasts have recently featured interviews with me about my collection Kitchen Hymns: the brilliant Meredith Lake and the delicious Dom Fay.
Poetry in the World
A list of events: Online and in the US (Honolulu)
June 17, Online
I’m offering a talk and poetry reading — titled “Hell is Other People” — through the WCCM. You can find more information and register to attend here.
July 31, Honolulu, Hawaii
I’ll be giving a talk at the Honolulu Museum of Art as part of a residency with the Merwin Conservancy. Details here.
I'm back at the hospital having post cancer treatment scans at the moment. As soon as I am through the doors of the unit I am connected immediately to a collective experience of the people there. We are all ages- young and old- , different cultures with many individual fears and hopes. We are all in a similar space with some being able to share- others not. Above all we are all ' held ' by staff who are sensitive to the individual needs of all of us- even when time constraints are a pressure. It feels like we are living - just for a short while- in a bubble that carries all that is best about being human. How precious these spaces are, where sadness and fear all get mixed in the great melting pot with kindness and the gift of those who support during such times. Thankyou to you all.
At least there are flowers. This past week, what kept me inspired was flowers. On a walk, I came upon a bush laden with luscious pink roses. A day later, some voluptuous deep maroon peonies. I captured their beauty with photos and texted to my friends with an end-of-week encouragement through beauty. I would add the photos to this post for you all, but can’t. So I invite you to seek beauty or to imagine the lovely roses and peonies.