{"id":9810,"date":"2024-08-07T02:49:23","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T02:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=9810"},"modified":"2024-08-07T18:06:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T18:06:34","slug":"word-made-fresh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/07\/word-made-fresh\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Made Fresh"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Case for Poetry<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A guide to poetry as a spiritual practice offers new\u00a0poetry readers and skeptics alike a pathway into the literary form.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Megan McDermott<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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At once I am both a natural audience for Abram Van Engen\u2019s\u00a0Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church\u00a0<\/em>and not quite its ideal reader. As an Episcopal priest and poet, my day-to-day life is intertwined with poetry and church. In my current context (a parish in the wonderfully artsy and academic Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts), I regularly invite parishioners to enjoy the power of poetry alongside me. In particular, I\u2019ve taken great joy in hosting poetry meditations on Zoom, where we reflect on the spiritual questions a poem might be evoking. My passions for both poetry and church mean I was immediately and enthusiastically on board with Van Engen\u2019s project of ushering Christians into the experience of poetry.\u00a0

At the same time, Van Engen\u2019s intended audience may be readers who are my opposite: those for whom poetry seems useless or feels unfamiliar. There is an underlying assumption that poetry might need justification in terms of its relevance, usefulness, and potential for pleasure. Meanwhile, the hypothetical reader\u2019s thoughts on church seem to be relatively secure. Though clergy, I\u2019ll admit I am someone for whom the reverse is sometimes true. Christianity often has more to prove to me than poetry does. I can get down and doubtful about church, especially the wider church and its role in history and contemporary life, with greater frequency than I do about the state of poetry. To justify why I continue to invest my life in Christianity feels much thornier than justifying investment in poetry. Acknowledging this gap helps me to understand that my own longings while reading do not necessarily reflect the book\u2019s primary purpose.

While the energy of Van Engen\u2019s target reader might primarily go towards agreeing, or disagreeing, with his premises about poetry\u2019s value (including its theological value), I kept busy noting the tantalizing and possibly subversive implications of his insights. The book asserts that poetry provides opportunities for the church to continue participating in the role of naming first given by God to Adam, approach \u201ctruths too big, or too hard, to tell in any other way\u201d (p. 201), and join others in rejoicing and mourning specific aspects of the human experience. These are worthy subjects, but I yearned for a more substantial vision of how any one of them might transform us. This, I felt, was delivered only in hints \u2013 ones I kept track of as I began to imagine a sign with quotes from the book hanging on the door of a church. So many sentences of this book provided relevant guidelines, prayers, and questions for someone entering a church:\u00a0

\u201cDo not feel compelled to have deep thoughts or earth-shattering revelations.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(p. 42, about how to read poetry)

\u201cIs God really guiding this?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(p. 141, a commentary on a poem by Anne Bradstreet)

\u201cIf we want the truth of it, all of it, we have to use our imagination.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(p. 179, commentary on Walt Whitman writing about grass)

\u201cIn winding about, we approach.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(p. 180, about both poetry and God)

\u201cIf God were an enemy instead of a friend, how could God do any worse than what he has done?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(p. 222, commentary on a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

\u201cBecoming the body of Christ means dealing honestly, as Christians, with the difficulties that pieties do not resolve.\u201d<\/em>(p. 233)

Clearly Van Engen\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0acknowledge the connection between the insights of poetry and the call of the church, but I wanted more. When he uplifted poets whose work \u201c[tries] to open\u2026oddity to others\u201d (p. 55), I wanted to know how seeing Scripture as odd or unfamiliar changes our interpretation of it and, subsequently, our theology. When he challenges a view of poetry that sees poems as primarily \u201cproclaiming messages or puzzles of meaning\u201d (p. 95), I wondered what would happen if we allowed ourselves to challenge similar perspectives on the Bible. What if we let Scripture, let church, let God teach us \u2013 like Van Engen says poetry does \u2013 \u201con the side\u201d or \u201caccidentally\u201d (p. 91)? How might that change our faith? Van Engen writes too about how \u201cattention produces discovery, and discoveries create anew\u201d (p. 162) and repeatedly uplifts the power of imagination. One might wonder: What does an imaginative, discovering, attentive, creating-anew church look and act like? How does that kind of church interpret Scripture? What does that kind of church believe?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Pervading this book is a generous disposition and the idea that anyone can benefit from a single, simple step in their poetic explorations.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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As much as I may have wanted deeper conversation with Van Engen on exactly these points, perhaps the book leaves these questions where they should be: in the hands of a reader about to embark on a hopefully transformative journey with poetry. Despite its open-endedness in this regard,\u00a0Word Made Fresh<\/em>\u00a0does provide much solid ground, especially for new readers of poetry. Its greatest strength is its practical insights on poetry delivered via the close reading of individual poems. Van Engen provides model after model of how to be a more deeply engaged reader. Even for those steeped in poetry, this book will likely introduce a new question or practice to enrich your personal reading or your communication about poetry with others. Pervading this book is a generous disposition and the idea that anyone can benefit from a single, simple step in their poetic explorations. Van Engen asserts that \u201cpoems, like pools, can be entered at any depth\u201d (p. 13).<\/p>

I appreciated Van Engen\u2019s willingness to name obstacles that can stand in the way of people enjoying poetry, especially those related to the potential intimidation factor. He addresses, for instance, the sometimes contradictory beliefs people have about poetry: perceptions that it\u2019s \u201ctoo difficult\u201d and also \u201ctoo simple\u201d (46). By naming these plainly and not scornfully, Van Engen meets reluctant poetry readers where they are. He continually encourages them to bring themselves to poems in a personal way and to turn down the pressure, internal and external, around having a profound experience. Most importantly, he is never precious about his own taste or any singular poem. Instead, he consistently accepts that a poem he loves may feel irrelevant to a reader and offers up additional options in its place.<\/p>

As the book goes on, Van Engen provides a variety of practical, concrete practices for exploring poems, such as erasing parts of a poem to focus on certain elements or rewording a phrase to better understand the impact of a poet\u2019s particular word choices. He also offers up questions that can be applied to any poem. I look forward to returning to some of these tools in my own attempts at reading poetry with my congregation and empowering people to believe in themselves as readers and interpreters. While the theological conversation about poetry\u2019s transformative power is just at its beginning in\u00a0Word Made Fresh<\/em>, the book\u2019s explorations of why and how one might read poetry, especially as a Christian, are well-developed and compelling. If poetry has not yet justified itself to you or someone you love, give\u00a0Word Made Fresh<\/em>\u00a0and its array of wonderful, closely read poems (from distinctive poets like Gwendolyn Brooks, Luci Shaw, Archibald MacLeish, Li-Young Lee, and more) a chance to make their case.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Megan McDermott<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>is a poet and Episcopal priest living in Western Massachusetts. She is the author of full-length collection\u00a0Jesus Merch: A Catalog in Poems\u00a0<\/em>(Fernwood Press) and two chapbooks,\u00a0Woman as Communion\u00a0<\/em>(Game Over Books) and\u00a0Prayer Book for Contemporary Dating<\/em>\u00a0(Ethel Zine and Micro-Press). Connect with her more at\u00a0meganmcdermottpoet.com<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Word Made Fresh<\/strong> was published by Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co. on June 25, 2024. You can purchase a copy from the publisher\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A guide to poetry as a spiritual practice offers new poetry readers and skeptics alike a pathway into the literary form. 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