Poetry

This past week was national poetry week, but that is not why I have chosen to write about poetry – although it would be a good reason. No, what set me onto this topic was in all probability age – forgetting things…I had fragments of an Emily Dickinson poem snapping at the edges of my memory. All week I had been reworking A CORNISH HOUSE and one of the key themes is faith and I was overwhelmed by so many thoughts during the solemn sung mass at Westminster Cathedral last Sunday.

A few weeks ago Biddy, here, asked how do you refill the well and recently another writer friend asked the question what do you do when you get stuck and another when do your best writing ideas come….be patient I will pull all of this together, I promise.

So sitting in the beautiful cathedral my senses were beginning stimulated in many ways – visually – I love the unfinished church and the way the massive crucifix pulls the eye while the morning lights streams in behind it; olfactorily (yes, it is a word – I had to check) the mix of incense and candles and people; auditorily the exquisite voices of the choir – all the while being on autopilot through the order of the mass which is simply a part of me. So my mind in the face of extreme stimulation yet relaxation picked up the words of the opening antiphon …

All things are submitted to your will, O Lord, and no one can resist your decisions; you have made all things, heaven and earth, and all that is contained under the vault of the sky; you are the master of the universe…Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

This was further echoed in the readings…

Hab 1:2-3

How long, O LORD? I cry for help
but you do not listen

2 TM 1:6-8, 13-14

Beloved:
I remind you, to stir into flame
the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. 
For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control. 
So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord,
nor of me, a prisoner for his sake;
but bear your share of hardship for the gospel
with the strength that comes from God.

Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me,
in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 
Guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit
that dwells within us.

Lk 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." 
The Lord replied,
"If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,
you would say to this mulberry tree,
'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

….

I came out of church buzzing with ideas for the book – excellent. (the well refreshed – who would have thought…but the music and beauty and the autopilot did the trick) The well had been refilled and the difficulty I had in progressing with the rewrite was reduced to surmountable obstacles.

Now fast forward to the end of last week. I was within thirty pages of the end of the rewrite and all I could think about was Emily Dickinson. I had been a good girl so I allowed myself to do a little research…

You see, in my final year at Mount Holyoke (where Emily herself spent time – although in those days it was labelled a women’s seminary), I did a fabulous senior seminar on her poetry. I won’t say we read all her poems, but I may have done it (something of a fan girl back then)….somewhere I knew there was poem of her struggling with her faith that I knew would tap into my heroine’s feelings…but could I find it – no.

However I did while away a happy hour or three rereading her work, which reminded me how important poetry used to be in my life. Call it my Irish roots and grandfather reciting bits of verse to me as I sat on his lap, or my teenage need to express all that was trapped in me…poetry spoke to me and to my soul.

It saddens me to say that with the odd exception I haven’t read poetry with diligence since I was twenty-five (this is of course discounting nursery rhymes). This is a mistake, a huge one….

So, poetry…where each word is weighed and measured and given forth almost reluctantly…do you read poetry? Did you read poetry? Do or did you write it? And if you do, do you share it? (Challenge – if you do post a link in the comments)

I just stumbled across my journal from my time studying the great poet….I can clearly see the influence of studying her work on thoughts and my words. I shall leave you with one of my favourite poems of hers:

You constituted Time –

I deemed Eternity

A Revelation of Yourself-

‘Twas therefore Deity

The Absolute – removed

The Relative away –

That I unto Himself adjust

My slow idolatry –

(Apologies if I have transcribed this incorrectly as I working from my old journal …underneath it I had added the comment ‘scalding prayer’)