INTRODUCTION
The fourth priority of the Order of Preachers established at the General Chapter of Quezon City in 1977 is as follows: “The integration of the means of social communications in the preaching of the word of God. To engage in the mass media.”
The intent of this priority is that we seek to preach the word of God in every manner possible, use every type of communications possible in order to evan-gelize as many souls as possible. Not all communication is strictly verbal, however, and thus Dominicans engage in preaching through such things as sculpture, like those of fr. Thomas McGlynn, O.P., or with haunting water color paintings, like those of fr. Albert Carpentier, O.P. or with poetry, like that of fr. Paul Murray.
This is the reason for the existence of such or-ganizations as the Dominican Institute of the Arts (DIA), a community of Dominican artists that fosters, supports, and gathers to celebrate the preaching of the Gospels through the arts, and The Preacher Poets, an online CyberCommunity of Preacher Poets, learning and sharing the preaching of the word of God through poetry.
The popularity of poetry as an art form along with the potential of its language makes it a good candi-date for a conveyance of divine truth.
Poetry is also a good fit for Dominicans life as defined by its four pillars of prayer, study, community, and apostolic activity.
Prayer
Praying with poetry is a tradition that dates back to antiquity. The Psalms themselves are poems that were written to be sung.
Poetry, as the original literary form, the most primitive, lent the veracity of its mnemonic capability to the preservation of the oral tradition. Shorter lines are always easier to remember and to pass from one genera-tion to the next. Also, the language used in mythologies—the stories of origins—is always metaphorical. This is why there is so much poetry in the Old Testament com-pared to the New.
Poetry’s form is capable of much lyricism and other poetic devices that, had St. Dominic given it seri-ous thought, it might have been the Tenth Way of Prayer alongside scourging. He might have recited poetry—loudly and out of tune to scare assassins—in his foot travels from place to place.
Study
To study poetry in the context of preaching the Sacred Word in order to discern the will of God is the manifest way in which Dominicans study all things. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Dominican theologian, studied sufficiently to write many poems into hymns. To study poetry as an art form is necessary for the composition of poems competent enough to carry the message of the Gospels. Just as friars prepare diligently to master the art of homiletics and understand the Gospels and theology of the Church, preacher poets should prepare for mastering the art and craft of poetry.
Community
Poetry, however, is a highly solitary endeavor, and though societies, associations, circles, and clubs ex-ist to aid the poet and network with other poets, the in-dividuality of writing remains the key. Poets write about many different things using many different styles. Poets within the Dominican Order, however, if they write in support of the preaching mission, write about one thing and one thing only—divine truth. This, combined with the traditional pillar of community almost necessitates the establishment and perpetuation of a community of poets for the purpose of teaching and preaching to one another and for praying together as Dominicans must.
This is the purpose of the Preacher Poets and the Annual OPrize for Poetry competition.
Apostolic Activity
The production of poetry and the publishing of poetry is the actual fruit of contemplation of preacher poets. Along with work in social justice, teaching, the other arts and sciences, poetry is a comparable activity.
Because the greatest thing of all, the greatest thing available to us as human beings—the Word of God—it behooves the preacher poet to give his or her best and learn the art and craft of poetry the best possi-ble way. Poetry that is crafted in the most magnificent ways is reminiscent, by the evocation of language, of great cathedrals and great moments in Church history.
This is the purpose of this CyberCommunity, The Preacher Poets: to bring an understanding of why poetry is perhaps the best language with which to preach the divine truth and how best to go about doing it along with examples of the various topics and subjects of Dominican endeavor in preaching the Good News.
ON PREACHING WITH POETRY
towering buttresses, word play, exaltation
of the whisper in the wind;
it’s here we whisper back, the buffeting of
our plumed pens, signs of the after word,
ink descending like seraphim and angels
dancing swing on the head of a pin;
words gain height by rising with the
incense, the rattled prayer
among bones that play in the catacombs
of old;
stuffed hair shirts and plausible indulgences
quite unlike that fire in the sky:
In Florence, whenever he shouted the
Word and called them all to repentance,
his words never died;
and so we always call a spade a trowel,
and with the mortar of our prayer, we
build up the kingdom: each teaching, a
brick, each tenet, iron stanchions
to let stand against
the gates of hell;
alliterate, assonate, count feet like
counting coup, turn rhyme into
testament;
and wax poetic to write and yield the truth.
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A Theology of Poetry
Paul Tillich wrote, “Ordinary language is not a medium of revelation.”
To this particular point, we recall the theological reality in which Christ emptied himself to take on the form of a slave, meaning, of course, his humanity. The emptying of divinity, in the sense that a change takes place to include the state of humanity, is an aspect of revelation; and while a simple declarative statement of this reality imparts the nature of the change, it cannot adequately deal with the plethora of connotations which stem from it.
Ordinary language falls short.
In addition to this, between the emptying of divinity and the taking on of humanity, even while maintaining both states in His person, something occurs in-between the two realities, something transformative by which a simple statement of fact cannot capture.
Our own consciousness is capable of engaging these two basic forms of reality—the temporal and the divine. However, in our temporal reality, human beings are capable of registering only about 7% as estimated in the amount of the total visible light spectrum our eyes can see. Without the help of instruments, therefore, we witness only a fraction of the reality created for us. By the same token, and even more dramatically, we perceive the divine reality through the use of our reason, limited as it is, “cloudy, as in a mirror.” (2 Cor 3:18)
To aid in the understanding of this in-between, which is directly pertinent to our role as preacher poets, let us turn to the science of quantum physics. Without us going into the deep-seated and complicated mathematics, quantum physicists have discovered that, at the foundation of reality, i.e., between the finite and the infinite, below the level of molecules, atoms, and the separate parts of atoms, there exist an entity known as the quanta. The quanta are manifested as packets of energy, which make up all of known reality. However, when we, as humans, observe the quanta—read closely—they re-manifest themselves as particles.
This discovered scientific fact has almost unimaginable ramifications for both our view of reality and the relationship of human consciousness to it, and to divine reality as well.
To re-iterate, the very foundation of our created reality is manifested in wave form until we look at it, then it becomes particle or solid. If our own temporal reality is dependent upon our human consciousness, how much different is the meaning of the Scripture that Man was, “created in His image,” that is, in the image of the Creator of all. According to discoveries in quantum physics, we are at the heart of reality’s practical mani-festation.
As far-fetched as this fact sounds, physicists have found that the quanta take on almost intelligent actions in different situations. For example, a single quantum shot toward a plate with two windows in it passes through both windows simultaneously. Also, when quanta are introduced into a very volatile plasma field they take on an almost defensive posture as if fighting for their continued existence. This intelligent action is part of what fosters the Intelligent Design the-ory, which, of course, holds that the incipient, ordered design of the universe represents the imprint of the Creator. If human consciousness affects quanta so spec-tacularly, how much more is the meaning of the Psalm (8:4-5), “What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor”?
Metaphor, Music, and Mathematics
This same classification governs aspects of our human communications. Metaphor, music, and mathematics all exhibit that in-between or intercessory func-tion in our natural communications with God. This extra-natural communication has been a part of our faith from the beginning. Anthony Kelly, CssR writes:
“That the authentic witness of faith makes wonderful alliances with the poetic can hardly be doubted, least of all in the Scrip-tures themselves. The sacred writings of Israel have been lov-ingly incorporated into the Christian Bible as the ‘Old Testa-ment’. Its psalms are the heartbeat of daily prayer. The great prophecies of Isaiah, the erotic tenderness of the Song of Songs, the wonderful contemplative meditations of the books of Wisdom and the bracing melancholy of Ecclesiastes – all have entered the bloodstream of the life of faith.” The E.J. Cus-kelly Memorial Lecture, May 2001 (printed in Compass 35/2, Winter 2001, 3-13.)
Metaphor is defined rudimentarily as a figure of speech that is used to refer to something it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity. An example is Martin Luther’s, “A mighty fortress is our God.” Liter-ally, of course, God is not the mortar and stone of a for-tress, and while we could have said, “Our God is big and strong,” it somehow falls short in poetic attempt. But the image of a fortress as applied to our understanding of the ethereal God elevates and makes concrete the notion of God as protector. This in-between elevating is the ex-tra-natural aspect of metaphor that gives us communi-cations beyond our respective tongues. Anthony
Kelly, CssR asks:
“How does poetry affect our language? At some level, it brings a renewal, a new charge of feeling at the deepest reg-isters of our being.” (Anthony Kelly, CssR, “The E.J. Cuskelly Memorial Lecture,” May 2001 (printed in Compass 35/2, Winter 2001, 3- 13.)
Metaphor is therefore all-inclusive because it elevates and registers in the deepest levels. While it is important to understand the nature of metaphors, we must always take care to minimize the risk of altering actual denotation, which would serve only to perpetually confuse the language. Metaphors are understood as separate, completely conditional entities with meanings that are always contextual and somewhat subject to individual interpretation.
Music, as an extra- language, exists to manipulate acoustical frequencies to give meaning to sound above the mundane chaos of noise. Particular chords derive cultural meaning, which may sometime derive a universal. Chords, their progressions, melodies, rhythms, etc. give us a ‘sense’ of sound, a connotation of sound, in other words, the organization of sound out of chaos.
The function or nature of mathematics is to classify all things—all of creation, and quite possibly reflections of the infinite, not only in space, but also in time. Some even suggest that mathematics holds the potential for classifying, in some vague respect, super-nature, be-cause, while beyond the scope of the natural, super-nature still exists in time and space, though in what context, we have yet to ascertain. However, super-nature is thus subject to the laws of creation, even if we have not discovered all of them yet. We may deduce such a claim by noting that the more mathematicians, quantum physicists, and cosmologists discover, the more they talk about the divine. In fact, the world’s best-known cos-mologist, Stephen Hawking stated that the religious im-plications of his work could not be denied.
So what does all this have to do with poetry? Very simple: metaphor, lyricism, and rhythm.
Metaphor, Lyricism, and Rhythm
Each of these aspects of poetry is extra-natural, which is what gives the art form its ability to act as a ves-sel of faith. The encyclical, Dei Verbum says of sacred writing, "For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse".
Metaphor we understand as the language of poetry, lyricism is the music of poetry, and rhythm is a precise mathematical endowment given to poetry. With re-gards to this endowment, however, it must be understood that mathematics in its purest form does not ultimately reduce its classification of creation to the irrelevant. Once the quantum state is reached, the classification of creation reveals the ultimate reality, which, of course, is God or the reflection of God, what I call the imprint of God.
The notion that this extra-natural communications is not entirely new is explored in Professor Douglas F. Ottati’s far-reaching book, Hopeful Realism. Curtis W. Freeman, in his review of the book writes:
“Three convictions guide this study. The first is that in the con-strual of God and the world the Christian theologian draws from the church’s poetic imagery contained in Scripture, tradi-tion, and experience. This hopeful conviction resists evangelical and empirical reductions of theology to literal or scientific statements. The second is the belief that Christian theology has a practical aim. This realistic conviction demands more than a restatement of the received tradition, characteristic of simple narrative theology, and requires theological expressions that are broadly intelligible to those outside the believing community. The third is the conviction that when theology makes use of the church’s poetry it results in a particular standpoint of life-before-God-and-God-before-life. This stance, which resists both naive optimism and cynical pessimism, is what Ottati calls hopeful realism.” (Curtis W. Freeman, Theology Today, Octo-ber, 2001)
Metaphor
In Scripture, these three extra-natural aspects of communications are found in the revelation of the Divine Word. We see in Exodus, God appearing to Moses as a burning bush. This is a metaphor chosen by God to represent His eternal glory (self-sustaining fire) within the context of the natural world (the bush).
The Christological representation of Christ as the Lamb is a metaphor for the sacrifice just as the metaphor of bread and wine represents His person just before it is transubstantiated into the Real Presence for the purpose of manifesting the Divine communion (flesh and blood—Christ, within each of us—food).
Actions translated as literal miracles also have metaphorical meaning. The feeding of the five thousand is a good example. Here, we have the manifest power of Christ, commanding the Apostles, which resulted in the outpouring of abundance of the people, which resulted in the collection of twelve baskets of left-overs. The abun-dance stems directly from Christ.
Demons into swine, Peter’s failed walk on the water, and a whole plethora of other events have meta-phorical meaning, which teaches us beyond the literal actions of the event.
Thus, the metaphor is utilized between Man and God as extra-natural communications and is one of the key elements of our use of poetry when preaching the Gospels. This is Ottati’s point, that Church theology (and I believe he means protestant Church theology) suffers from its lack of poetry. Reading the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church or the Compendium of the So-cial Doctrine or any of the encyclicals reveals the abun-dant use of metaphor and imagery, their very founda-tions poetic as they search for meaning from God.
Saint Thomas Aquinas has a slightly different view of the relationship between poetry and theology:
“Aquinas believed that while poetry and theology are not the same, for poetry lacks the truth while theology em-bodies it, he thought that both poetry and theology called for the use of analogies or metaphors. Precisely because poetry's lack of truth means it can never speak of the truth directly and the overwhelming nature of the truth in theology makes direct speaking of the truth impossi-ble...both poetry and theology demand more of the hu-man intellect than it is capable of performing, a weak-ness Aquinas identified with because he often practiced the process of gaining knowledge through the material-to abstract transformation.” (Wit and Mystery: A Re-valuation in Mediaeval Latin Hymnody, Walter J. Ong)
Even in translation, we find metaphorical meaning. Take the Nativity. The crude Greek used in the Gospel story to describe the place where the infant Jesus laid literally translates to a, “pile of hay.” English translations, however, use the word “manger,” which elevates the meaning of a “pile of hay.” Manger, from the old French, is the trough used to feed animals. Placing the hay in the manger, thus, elevates the place of Christ’s birth to one that feeds the world through His person who lay upon the hay as a newborn infant.
Lyricism
Lyricism is the musical quality of a poem. The sense of the flow of a poem through the use of meter and word order establishes its lyricism. We find this quality in the Psalms which are prayers meant to be sung. We need only look to as far as the Twenty-third Psalm to hear the distinctive lyricism:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the
paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art
with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence
of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the
LORD for ever.”
How many hymns and songs have been written from this Psalm? The flow of the words lends itself to music. Also, use of the King James’ English, in this particular case, helps in establishing the flow as the words manifest not only a rhythmic pattern but also alliteration along the words ends. The metaphors are abundant—the valley of the shadow of death, the most well known among them. Here is an example of a song written using Psalm 23:
Psalm 23
By John Michael Talbot
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want,
Beside restful waters,
I am there;
In the pasture of plenty,
My soul lies down;
So come all you thirsting,
Your soul shall be refreshed,
And come all you weary
And be healed
For though we walk in the
darkness now
No fear shall triumph
If the light of His love
Be at our side;
The Lord my shepherd
I shall not want
Beside restful waters
I am there;
In the pasture of plenty
My soul lies down;
And come all you hungry
At the table find His bread
And come now be anointed
Overflow, with His goodness
and kindness
For the rest of your years
As you dwell within the House
Of Our Lord;
The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want
Beside restful waters
I am there
In the pasture of plenty
My soul lies down
In the pasture of plenty
My soul lies down.
The use of metaphors in the song is much less than in poetry, but music does not rely on metaphor as much as poetry.
In the following example from Nobel Prize winner (1995) Seamus Heaney, we see both an abundance of metaphor and a delicate lyricism:
St Francis and the Birds
By Seamus Heaney
When Francis preached love to the birds
They listened, fluttered, throttled up
Into the blue like a flock of words
Released for fun from his holy lips,
Then wheeled back, whirred about his head,
Pirouetted on brothers’ capes.
Danced on the wing, for sheer joy played
And sang, like images took flight.
Which was the best poem Francis made,
His argument true, his tone light.
Rhythm
For those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours on a daily basis, the cadence or rhythm of the Hours becomes a familiar aspect of the ritual. Beyond this, there is a larger rhythm in the Church that parallels the cycle of seasons—the Cycle of the Liturgical Year. Rhythm is natural to us, experienced even prior to birth in the beating of our mother’s heart. As infants, a mother’s song, rocking, and petting, are all used to calm us. Nurs-ery rhymes, with their sing-song lyricism, accompany us through childhood. As teenagers, the maddening pounding rhythm of rock music (or its postmodern derivatives) keeps us in touch with organized chaos. As adults, we have our own music, jingles, the rhythm of traffic and taxes, we might better appreciate poetry itself, Shakespeare, or other literature. The rhythms of our lives are the rhythms of creation and when we pay par-ticular attention to rhythm—which we call meter—in the crafting of poetry, we close the gap between God and Man.
Following is an example of one of my own poems, which illustrate the dynamic of meter as accomplished by a carefully constructed internal rhyme and alliteration:
Under Foot
(the Burial of St. Dominic)
By Robert Curtis, OPL
sandaled steps in sleepy-eyed
shuffle, amid falling leaves,
and a breeze that catches the
soulful tolling of the bells;
these plastered walls, stone
faced, ringing down his song,
their path long through the
dust of the foot soldier’s road;
they carried him to a bench,
his last breath, the word they
heard for the courage to
carry the torch two-by-two;
and those sandals he shared,
through village and town,
until stricken down and his
one last wish—but to be
under foot.
Conclusion
Poetry is fundamental to our language and to our communications with the numinous or ethereal. With poetry, we are able to express the inexpressible, capture the mundane and elevate it to the realm of beauty. Poetry is our translator. It allows us to see and feel, and maybe even wrap ourselves in the cloths of heaven as W.B. Yeats wrote:
He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven
By William Butler Yeats
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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