Religion and Poetry

[Darwin]

[...]Also, with both, it has to hold my interest for me to bother trying to solve it.

There's one of my problems. I can concentrate quite intently on a variety of activities, but poetry reading doesn't seem to be one of them.

I've recently become more attuned to the poetry in song lyrics.

I often find song lyrics interesting of themselves, but seldom to the point that I would go out of my way to read them without having heard them sung. However, there are many songs that can move me to tears. In fact, there are a few that I have trouble singing for that reason, like when 'Omie Wise says"

    Oh think of our baby, John, spare me my life
    And I'll go distracted and never be a wife

Not great poetry, I'm sure, and simply reading it doesn't do anything for me, but combine it with the melody, and I'm a goner.

Sometimes lyrics, like bad poems, are infantile, or annoying (Michael Cretu's lyrics on any of the later Enigma CDs are rediculous),

I was a big fan of the Rolling Stones when they first appeared, but I bought a book of their songs in the early '70s, and was quite disappointed with the lyrics. Maybe it was just part of my general failure to appreciate poetry, but I found them totally inane and uninteresting, with very few exceptions.

Nevertheless, I continued to enjoy them as songs.

[...]Some songwriters use imagery that's worthy of the greats. Dylan springs to mind, but even Aerosmith can occasionally turn a phrase into a puzzle of poesy:

• I majored in Love
  But in all minor keys
  'Cause falling in love is hard on the knees.

Now that's one I get, even without ever having heard it sung.

It seems to me that Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry in A Coney Island of the Mind was a bit like that Aerosmith example, somehow. On the other hand, I tried and tried to like Kerouac's and Ginsberg's, but it didn't click at all--beyond the opening lines of Howl. I'm not sure what the difference was.

Likewise, you can find a lot of fascinating puzzles in religious study that are interesting even (maybe especially) if you have no personal stake in the beliefs.

I think that having grown up as, essentially, a Biblical literalist, I can only look at Christianity from a literal true-or-false standpoint. Once I had decided that it was literally false, it became pretty much meaningless to me--except for parts of the Sermon on the Mount that work just fine from a non-religious standpoint. Myth and symbolism in the Joseph Campbell-Carl Jung sense doesn't seem to do much for me, either. Perhaps that's related to my lack of interest in most poetry. I'm sure that a big part of the attraction of Buddhism is that it works just fine with my literal-mindedness.

[fearfaoin]

My reaction to the presence of words has always been that they should be meaning something. I don't seem to be very sensitive to the sounds of words. I have read things about prose writing that make me realize I also miss out on that aspect of prose. So even though I read a great deal, and sometimes I do read things that are very well written, my mind seems to be unaware of the sounds the words would make. It is connected only to the ideas---and I know the sounds could have something to do with the ideas, so I consider it a problem.

This is interesting. I am a very audial (as opposed to visual) person.
I hear words as I read them. Of course, this means that I am a slow
reader because I cannot read a group of words at one time, as
speed-readers do. But it also means I loved Shakespeare more
than my average classmate did, because I could hear the rhythm as
I read, and had little trouble understanding the Elizabethan diction
(though I still needed footnotes for the Elizabethan pop-culture
references).

I might enjoy the puzzle sort of poem, but I have never understood one (I haven't read that many really) well enough to know where to start or if it is a puzzle.

Every poem is some sort of puzzle, as is every song lyric. Some are
straight-forward, some are trivial to understand, sometimes the
solution is that they don't really mean anything, but many times one
is rewarded with deep, or humorous, or inflammatory meanings
once the puzzle is solved.

Here's some poems that Ambrose Bierce used in his Devil's
Dictionary. They're pretty simple, because otherwise the satire
might be lost, but they're some of my favorites.

• In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
  By spark and flame, the thought reveal
  That he the metal, she the stone,
  Had cherished secretly, alone.
  --Booley Fito

When you think about it, this is neat imagery for passion. If you keep
your flint and your steel separate, they don't make a spark. You
can't start a fire that way! But when you bring them together, you
could make a huge bonfire by rubbing the two together. The
potential for fire is always there, but can't actually happen until the
flint touches the steel. Likewise, with people: "He the metal (steel),
she the stone (flint)"; they might fantasize when apart, but the real
fires of passion are kindled only when there's friction.

Another, more inflamatory one is:

• I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
  The godly multitudes walked to and fro
  Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
  With pious mien, appropriately sad,
  While all the church bells made a solemn din --
  A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
  Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
  With tranquil face, upon that holy show
  A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
  Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
  "God keep you, strange," I exclaimed. "You are
  No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
  And yet I entertain the hope that you,
  Like these good people, are a Christian too."
  He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
  It made me with a thousand blushes burn
  Replied -- his manner with disdain was spiced:
  "What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ."
  --Ambrose Bierce, writing as Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

This poem is mostly setup for the cynical thought that Jesus Christ
would be very disappointed and saddened with his followers'
hipocracy. (I really like the imagery: "the church bells made a
solemn din / A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin." The "fire-alarm"
part meaning that the bells serve as a warning about the hellfire
that supposedly awaits the sinful.) I think we can infer that Ambrose
Bierce was in the "not religious, writes poetry" column...

[fearfaoin]

I often find song lyrics interesting of themselves, but seldom to the point that I would go out of my way to read them without having heard them sung. However, there are many songs that can move me to tears.

The right tune emphasizes the emotion in a poem, especially (for
me), pain and sadness. Kilkelly, Ireland does it for me.

I think that having grown up as, essentially, a Biblical literalist, I can only look at Christianity from a literal true-or-false standpoint.

I think this is the saddest part of Fundamental Literalism. It makes
the religion an all-or-nothing prospect, and thereby turns many people
away. I suppose this is the wrong forum, though. Sorry.

[dubhlinn]

[...]Some songwriters use imagery that's worthy of the greats. Dylan springs to mind, but even Aerosmith can occasionally turn a phrase into a puzzle of poesy:

• I majored in Love
  But in all minor keys
  'Cause falling in love is hard on the knees.

Bob and Aerosmith...indeed.

No comment.....not one word.

Slan,
D.

[herbivore12]

I asked a friend of mine -- who moved from being unable to understand poems to becoming a fan -- how she learned to like poetry. She reccomended a couple of books that seemed to open poetry up to her.

They are:

Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook

and

Mark Polonsky's The Poetry Reader's Toolkit

(If anyone chooses to buy one of these, please go through C&F's Amazon link.)

I've not read either of these, but may purchase Polonsky's book, which sounds interesting. I'm already a poetry-lover (and on topic: not religious), but it never hurts to see how a practiced author/reader experiences a poem. (I really like Mary Oliver's poems, by the way -- and they frequently involve birds, which are another passion of mine.)

[dubhlinn]

Herbie,

Hardy is there ...just for that.

I'm not overtly familiar with the English poets but Hardy is another thing completely...

All those novels....then came the verses....pure delight.

Check it out.

Slan,
D.

[amar]

My Love is Like a Red Red Rose

by Robert Burns



0, my love is like a red, red rose,
that's newly sprung in June.
0, my love is like a melody,
that's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair thou art, my bonnie lass,
so deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear,
till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
and the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will love thee still, my dear,
while the sands of life shall run.

And fare the weel, my only love!
And fare the well awhile!
And I will come again, my love.
Tho it were ten thousand mile!


I love that.

[fearfaoin]

Bob and Aerosmith...indeed.
No comment.....not one word.

I didn't mean they were in the same league or anything, merely that
both make use of poetic imagery and metaphor. I make no argument
that Aerosmith does a better job than Bob, far from it. But, I DO think
that Steve Tyler's lyrics are often underrated.

Example (from "Ain't that a B!tch"):

• When you feel so out of place,
  You're licking up the arsenic from the same old lace
  You know the stuff is poison but you got to have a taste.

Come on, that's a great pop-culture reference! (If you've never seen
Arsenic and Old Lace, go rent it right now. NOW!)

[dubhlinn]

Come on, that's a great pop-culture reference! (If you've never seen
Arsenic and Old Lace, go rent it right now. NOW!)

How many Bob albums did you say you have?

Seriously speakin'.....

I'm here.

Ready and waiting....

Slan,
D.

[Darwin]

I am a very audial (as opposed to visual) person. I hear words as I read them. Of course, this means that I am a slow reader because I cannot read a group of words at one time, as speed-readers do. But it also means I loved Shakespeare more than my average classmate did, because I could hear the rhythm as I read, and had little trouble understanding the Elizabethan diction (though I still needed footnotes for the Elizabethan pop-culture references).

I'm quite the opposite. I'm not a speed-reader, but I read very quickly--except for difficult technical stuff, which can slow me down, and even put me to sleep the way James Joyce does. (Part of the problem there is that I often don't start reading until close to midnight.)

I enjoy seeing Shakespeare's plays performed, but enjoy reading them less.

I did enjoy the Ambrose Bierce samples enough to go to my bookshelves and pull down The Devil's Advocate: An Ambrose Bierce Reader, edited by Brian St. Pierre. Unfortunately, I was immediately distracted by his wonderful letters. If he was religious, he was as unforgiving as Mark Twain in his satirical commentary on religion as it was being practiced.

Still, I'll work on the poetry a bit.

[fearfaoin]

How many Bob albums did you say you have?

This is why people hate poetry. They think there's a certain level
below which something is not poetry, and if they don't like the stuff
that's above that level, then they must not like poetry in general, Q.E.D.

I think there's very accessable poetry out there that people miss out
on because they think they don't like the whole genre. We have to
remove a certain rigid object from our cultural posteriors to see this,
but it's worth it.

Incidentally, I have three bootlegs of my mother's Dylan vinyls, but
I've never spent any of my own money on the laser-imprented forms.

[SteveShaw]

My Love is Like a Red Red Rose

by Robert Burns



0, my love is like a red, red rose,
that's newly sprung in June.
0, my love is like a melody,
that's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair thou art, my bonnie lass,
so deep in love am I,
And I will love thee still, my dear,
till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
and the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will love thee still, my dear,
while the sands of life shall run.

And fare the weel, my only love!
And fare the well awhile!
And I will come again, my love.
Tho it were ten thousand mile!


I love that.

I love that too, and I love this as well:

Sonnet no. 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

by William Shakespeare

I knew the line But thy eternal summer shall not fade from the frontispiece of a book about the life of Mozart but for years I didn't know where it was from. For me, this poem expresses a simple notion in the most beautiful and straightforward way.

Steve

[Dale]

My reaction to the presence of words has always been that they should be meaning something.

Yes, well, that's not an unreasonable reaction.

[Cynth]

Like Darwin I would like to make an effort.

I'll look into those books herbivore12 recommended.

fearfaoin, your examples were helpful---the way you explain your thought process that leads to your conclusion. I have that book, somewhere, and I know I "read" it, but I'd better look at it again. I think it is an interesting idea that if one does not respond to some poetry that does not mean one dislikes all poetry. It is not all the same. I'll have to think about that. I tend to read too fast, and this may be one of the problems. I have trouble slowing down when it is necessary. I have to stop myself at times when I sense that my eyes are going faster than my brain.

amar, that is a poem that I can like. BigDavy sent me a version sung by Davy Steele. It is pleasant to read but, for me, when it is sung it is just piercingly beautiful. It doesn't seem like it should be that way, but....

dubh, I have read a number of Thomas Hardy's novels and want to read them all again. Are you saying that after doing that, if I do a good job, I would be prepared to read his poetry? I'm not quite sure what you meant, although it was addressed to herbivore12. Or maybe you meant his poetry is a good place to start?The Adored.

[fearfaoin]

I love that too, and I love this as well:
Sonnet no. 18
...

I prefer Willie at his most sarcastic:

Sonnet no. 130

• My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
  Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
  
  I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
  And in some perfumes is there more delight
  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
  
  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
  That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
  I grant I never saw a goddess go;
  My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
  
  And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
  As any she belied with false compare.