[Paul Lake]

At the last West Chester Conference, I read excerpts from an essay called "Poetry, Spilt Religion, and the Poetic Imagination" on the Relgion and Poetry panel. Anyone who wants to read the whloe text can now find it on the link to CPR below. I'm also posting this annoucenment on General Talk.
http://www.cprw.com/Lake/spiltreligion.htm

[nyctom]

Paul:

I'll come back to this, but I think the essay would have been stronger and more persuasive for me if there was an acknowledgment that religious poetry did not stop with Larkin, whose last book was published more than thirty years ago, or an acknowldgment that "a classical poetry governed by 'fancy'" might take a multiplicity of forms, and not just the either/or alternatives offered. I certainly don't go out of my way to look for 'religious poetry' (which I am not sure you ever really codify in the article)--but I find far more contemporary examples of poets struggling with religion and spirituality which are never mentioned in your article. What about Anne Sexton? Or Lucille Clifton? Or Linda Pastan? What about religions OTHER than Judeo/Christianity? Why this emphasis on an avant-garde that seems to exist only in the pages of certain literary journals? Why does this "new classical attitude" only seem to exist in the usual New Formalist suspects?

It's a decent overview of the Christian tradition in Western poetry, but I found myself saying, "But..." "but..." "but..." continuously as I read the article.

Tom

[winter]

Paul

Thanks for posting this very interesting paper. I'll think about it and get back to you with a response.

Tom Bates, one of the moderators at PFFA, has just posted a poem to the Merciless forum there that seems to me to be reflecting on some of the issues dealt with in the paper.

Here's the link if you are interested. I may crit the poem once I get some time to give it my full attention.

Rob

[VictoriaGaile]

Hi Paul,

Your essay seems to take as its premise that religion is dead, killed by the Enlightenment. This would certainly be news to millions of devout believers in a variety of religions. As the bumper sticker says, "MY God's not dead - sorry about yours!"

Or have I missed something?

For poetry that honestly grapples with and celebrates faith from a contemporary perspective, try the work of Denise Levertov and Marge Piercy.

[Paul Lake]

Thanks for having a look at my essay, Victoria. You're right about the premise: in the media, in higher education, religion is considered more or less dead. Worse, it's considered horribly retrograde among intellectuals and artists to practie or talk about religion, and if you look at other countries like Sweeden, Denmark, France, the percentage of church goers is sliding toward single digits.

I have read a fair amount of Levertov's poetry and a sampling of Marge Piercy's and I can't say I remember any particular religious tone or subject matter in either. Can you point me toward a a few paraticular poems?

Thanks.

[J.D. Hughes]

hi paul,

i read your article. i found this sentence interesting:

As to the future, a classical poetry governed by “fancy” might take two very different forms: the first, an honest atheism founded on reason’s rejection of the supernatural; the second, a genuinely religious poetry in which reason and faith are reconciled.

to me, atheism and theism are two sides of the proverbial coin. hans kung, a german theologian, does an exceptional job showing this IMO. both use reason to prove their "case," but only faith can commit one to the finial decision of belief or disbelief. i don't think belief is any more of a leap of faith than disbelief.

i have found a few poets that might not write from a "firm persuasion," but that do write from a sense of mystery and an honest struggle with beliving in this age. mark jarman and scott cairns are two i've read a bit of. there's also a journal called <u>Image: Journal of the Arts and Religion</u> that is certainly trying to encourage writing from a spiritual standpoint. seattle pacific university has recently started an MFA program that specifically focuses on the "Judeo-Christian tradition in literature." one of the teachers there, Paul Mariani, has a written a book called <u>God and the Imagination</u> that you might find interesting. i haven't read it, but the title seems it might work in the same direction as your essay.

thanks for posting the essay,
jd

[This message has been edited by J.D. Hughes (edited February 22, 2005).]

[VictoriaGaile]

Hi Paul,

For Denise Levertov, take a look at

Annunciation
Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell
St Thomas Didymus
The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416
Mass for the Day of St Thomas Didymus - this one's especially good for issues of faith and doubt, and such a clever form
St Peter and the Angel
'In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being"

All can be found in the "selected poems" collection available from New Directions.

I'll copy in "The Harrowing of Hell", just for a sample: this was the first of her poems that I encountered when it showed up on one of the "daily" sites, and it was so good I went and got a collection.

Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell

Down through the tomb's inward arch
He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
the innocents just His own age and those
unnumbered others waiting here
unaware, in an endless void He is ending
now, stopping to tug at their hands,
to pull them from their sarcophagi,
dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;
the promise, given from cross to cross
at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
All these He will swiftly lead
to the Paradise road: they are safe.
That done, there must take place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, in Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food -- fish and a honeycomb.


For Marge Piercy, consider

The Art of Blessing the Day
Meditation Before Reading Torah
Amidah: On our feet we speak to you
Nishmat
Maror
Kaddish

all in her collection "The Art of Blessing the Day" from Knopf.

For a sample, here's "Kaddish":
Kaddish

Look around us, search above us, below, behind.
We stand in a great web of being joined together.
Let us praise, let us love the life we are lent
passing through us in the body of Israel
and our own bodies, let's say amein.

Time flows through us like water.
The past and the dead speak through us.
We breathe out our children's children, blessing.

Blessed is the earth from which we grow,
Blessed the life we are lent,
blessed the ones who teach us,
blessed the ones we teach,
blessed is the word that cannot say the glory
that shines through us and remains to shine
flowing past distant suns on the way to forever.
Let's say amein.

Blessed is light, blessed is darkness,
but blessed above all else is peace
which bears the fruits of knowledge
on strong branches, let's say amein.

Peace that bears joy into the world,
peace that enables love, peace over Israel
everywhere, blessed and holy is peace, let's say amein.

[Mark Allinson]

to me, atheism and theism are two sides of the proverbial coin. hans kung, a german theologian, does an exceptional job showing this IMO. both use reason to prove their "case," but only faith can commit one to the finial decision of belief or disbelief. i don't think belief is any more of a leap of faith than disbelief.

I would like to second JD on this issue. A clear distinction needs to be made between "faith" and "belief", long separated in our tradition but now in danger of collapsing into synonymity. I spent 150 pages discussing the history of this difference in my dissertation, but this short poem I wrote recently is more succinct, I hope.

Belief and Faith


Within the room of self, belief
paints windows, ceilings, doors;
giving a sense of sure relief
by covering all the flaws.

It paints to seal up every gap
and chink where dark may creep
through the room of self to sap
its peace of flood-lit sleep.

Painting tones of paradise
it covers shades in white,
with hope its vision is precise
in getting heaven right.

But all the while it knows it knows
beyond just might not be
anything like its painting shows,
which means it is not free.

And though believing it's secured
within its covered walls,
truth out there is still obscured
so doubt here still appals.

Faith, so different in its mode,
steps from the painted room
to walk beyond belief's abode
into the outer gloom.

There it stays and there it stares
into the mystery night
until appear those holy flares
of real starry light.


==========

Or not, as the case may be.

In my own view, which might not be the view of others, I am, essentially, a religious poet.




------------------
Mark Allinson

[TADE]

Hi Mark,

First I would like to say that I quite enjoyed your poem. I did help me gain some insight into your distinction between belief and faith. I too feel that ther's a marked difference between these concepts and this poses, for me, a question.

I would begin be offering my own distinction between the two:
To say I believe something to be true means I have weighed this idea against some known fact, collection of facts or extrapolation of facts and have concluded that the idea has a distinct possibility of being true. If I say I have accepted something to be true on faith means that I have not weighed this idea against any known fact, collection of facts or extrapolation of facts yet have concluded that it is true, simply because it is mentally comforting to do so. Faith is the absence of reason.

Having looked at the eloquence of the inner and outer workings of the universe, I have concluded that there appears to be an intelligent creator. However, it is a long way between this belief and the knowing beyond doubt as to this being’s intent. It is the conceit of religion that someone has known or does know the Creator’s purpose. This is where I begin to wonder how people of good solid intellect and reason can accept as true the premise of any religion. What causes an individual to accept as true the Semitic mythology over another mythology? Why would one accept as truth the story of a creator who would demand appeasement only through human sacrifice and then take part in the drama them self? I could go on with an endless list of these kinds of questions but it is that “leap” that is the gist of my question. How did you get to that place in your quest to understand the why of our existence where reason was discarded?

I hope you don’t see this as an attack but as a sincere desire to understand. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you to be that person of good solid intellect I mentioned above. I haven’t been an active participant but I do check the boards nearly everyday. Your poetry, critiques and what you’ve contributed to general discussions have impressed me. That’s why when I read your poem and that you considered yourself to be a religious poet I thought you might be someone who could give me an honest answer.

Thanks,

Tade

P.S. Last year I spent six weeks surfing the Goldcoast and the northern part of NSW. You live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Sitting on the bluffs by the lighthouse in Bryon Bay and looking down at the dolphins playing in the depths of the crystal-clear water was something of a religious experience!

[Mark Allinson]

Hi Tade,

Thank you for your comments.

This question of faith and belief is such a fascinating issue, I think. And for me, it is intimately bound up with human psychology. I write this in the understanding that with such a profound issue, and such limited space, it will probably only serve to generate a thousand more questions than it set out to answer. Anyway, here is a sketch of my position.

The human being, as far as we know at present, is the only creature to identify its self with a mental image, facilitated by language. This language structured, socially influenced image of identity is the ego, the "I". It is a mental construct, produced by "rational" mental forces. However, the reality of our being, which includes our body and all the unconscious psychic processes, is much greater than our idea of our being. We might like to think we are "in control" of things, "on top" of our lives, but we don't even know how we produce our daily supply of new red-blood cells. It happens below rational control or understanding. In short, our reality, our existence, is not contained by our mental image of our being. It is a little bit like identifying oneself with a snap-shot photo - we feel, yes, that's me. But it is only a symbolic image, a concept, and not the totality of our being - which is everything not included in the snap-shot.

Now, when it comes to religion, the ego identity - this ghostly mental nexus of idea and image - wants to feel a sense of security and order with regard to its stabilty and continuity. And since it is a mental construct, it requires mental maps of propositions and statements on ultimate matters by which it can feel a sense of security. In short, the ego needs to "believe" in something, even if it is a belief in non-belief. All of us, ultimately, have a metaphysical scheme, a "belief" as to what constitutes "reality", no matter how tenuous or badly reasoned, or bleak But it's when we identify, literally, with what we believe that the possibility of conflict with other belief systems comes about.

As we have seen throughout history, this process of identifying with a collection of religious propositions, just like identifying one's self with a collection of national propositions, or racial propositions or political propositions, is very divisive. If my security is based upon my collection of propositions (what I "believe"), then the mere existence of other groups believing in other collections of propositions (other beliefs) will threaten the sense of certainty I have about my beliefs. And what if I am wrong, and some other group has it right? The ultimate security for belief is unanimity. And since this is impossible, there will always be religious conflict between "believers". So I see religious "belief" (as distinct from faith) as an ego issue. And when the security of the ego is concerned, violence is never far away.

So you can see I am not a very big fan of the dissociated mental ego, which believes itself to be the core of our being, our true self. The socially structured, symbolic identity of the ego is a temporary thing, which knows its is temporary, but doesn't like this fact. So it looks for ways to assure itself of some future, where it will be "saved" from obliteration in death. So ultimate security for the ego is tied up in the realm of assent to propositions, which is belief. And the more insecure one feels, the louder one will proclaim one's beliefs, and the more want to convert others.

Now, you say that for you "faith" seems to be the absence of reason. I would prefer to say that faith is "trans-rational", or even "infra-rational". It is a state of being not dependent upon the security of dependence upon mental propositions. The ice-berg 90% of our being which lies below the water-mark of rational consciousness is the realm of faith. It is an ontological reality, a reality of being, rather than of mental concepts. This why my poem speaks of faith stepping out from the "room of self" into the unknown. Belief is always within the room of self, which as I said always makes it prone to the violence of the preceived need for self-defence. The ego self is very "self-ish". Faith is born when the ego realises it is not the entire self, and is "seen through" as an image among other images, and not the entire self. Faith, for me, is what happens when the mental ego "dies" to its own sense of self-sufficiency. Faith is the ontological assurance which results from a "seeing through" of the pretence of the ego to identity, and it is not dependent upon the assent to propositions. One can have a profound faith, a deep sense of ultimate trust in life, and yet believe nothing at all. Conversely, one can be an intensely committed believer and have no faith whatsover.

But this state of faith depends on our deeper being seeing through the ego pretence to literal self-hood. The reason why we hear so much about the "born again" element in religion is because it is based on a truth - we need to die to ego-identity (not lose our ego, which would render us mad or at least unsocial beings), and on the other side of this "death" find the roots of our being which go down into the dark unknown. Once we feel this deep connection with Being, we lose our deepest anxiety - the ego's fear of annihilation, since it has, in a sense, already occured, and yet Being still is. However, a great deal of apparent "born again" experiences, in my view, are really defences against such an experience, rather than the experience itself. And you can tell the difference between these ersatz "born again" experiences, since the person will become even more energised in "belief", holding even more tightly to propositions, and driven to proslytise in order to shore up support for beliefs, to help keep anxiety at bay. The true "ego-death" experience results in less need to hold onto any propositions, since the ego-realm of rational proposition has been seen through.

This experience of "ego-death" (which is the birth of "faith") is at the heart of all bona fide mysticism - the loss of identification with a the mental construct of ego-identity, and a new awareness of the ontological reality upon which all life "floats" and has its being. D.H.Lawrence says it quite plainly in one of his last poems:

Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?

If not, you will never really change ... ("Phoenix")

==========

All apparent change without this erasure of the ego is no change at all. Faith lies on the other side of this oblivion of ego. It is an experience, rather than a concept.

I better stop now - this could go on for many pages.

Tade, I hope this makes some sense.



------------------
Mark Allinson