Advent, Poetry, Essays, & Riding the Rails

Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ 

(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 406 pages including Biblical references

A few weeks before Advent this year, I began reading this collection of essays and sermons. However, I quickly learned I was already behind the curve. For Rutledge, the Advent themes begin on All Saints Day adding another four weeks to the season we generally think of as the four Sundays of preparation for Jesus’ birth.

The Christian year begins with Advent, but her sermons include the end of the old Christian year and the beginning of the new. This is the season of judgment, the return of Jesus, the end of the age, the need to be ready, to repent, to wait patiently. In writing about Advent and with a host of sermons that she preached during this season of the year, Rutledge reminds us that we’re not as good as we think we are and our need to depend on God. Her sermons are filled with reminders that evil is real and there a real battle going on in both the world and our lives. She warns against a Christianity that thinks we must make the right decision (accept Jesus) and not have to deal with the reality that there is an enemy of God, Satan. Her sermons are a call to action. 

Sermons that tie into what’s happening in the world

Karl Barth is often quoted as saying we are to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Rutledge, a student of Barth (along with Calvin and others), displays this wisdom. These sermons, delivered from the mid-70s through the first decade of the 21st Century, display keen insights into the events of the world: terrorist attacks, Rwandan genocide, the Gulf War, the Iraqi War, the Bush/Gore election, school shootings, Emmanuel AME shootings among others. I have never had the skill or maybe I lacked the boldness to directly include such topics in my sermons, often choosing to address them in prayers. The sermons are pastoral. Imagine preaching an ordination sermon the weekend after the Sandy Hook school shooting in a neighboring town. She handles the scripture, the charge to the pastor, and addresses the situation with grace.

Rutledge is a master wordsmith

Rutledge is well read, both in the discipline of theology as well in literature. Her sermons are steeped in scripture, which allows her to interpret the events happening in the world along with insights from theology and literature. She draws heavily on the poetry of W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot.  The combination results in convincing essays and sermons that give her listeners (and readers) much to ponder.  While Rutledge (taking her clues from scripture) doesn’t provide an answer to the reason evil exists, she also doesn’t deny or diminish evil’s powers. But she reminds her readers of God’s greater power and love and leaves us with hope. While there is a lot of darkness in her sermons, there is also the anticipation of light (which is what the season of Advent is about).

Rutledge is an Episcopalian and one of the first women ordained into ministry by the Episcopal Church in the United States. 

I recommend this book for both Christians and those who might be skeptical that the Christian faith has little to say to today’s world. 

Paul J. WillisSay This Prayer into the Past: Poems 

(Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2014), 100 pages.

This is a delightful collection of poetry from Willis, an English professor at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.  I purchased the book from the Calvin University bookstore when I was there in early October. I had met the author though Calvin’s “Festival of Faith and Writing” workshops. Once, when I lived in Michigan, I encouraged him to stay a few days afterwards to do a poetry reading at Pierce Cedar Creek Nature Center south of Hastings, Michigan. It was early April 2012. On the morning of the reading, I took Willis on a hike on the trails around the property. That evening he read a poem he’d worked out while hiking that morning titled, “Skunk Cabbage.” An edited version of that poem is in this collection. 

Nature plays a prominent role in Willis’ poems. Many of these poems he locates in various places in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Pacific Northwest. Faith and scripture references also abound in these poems, as well as the theme of fire. This collection was compiled after the author lost his home to the 2008 Tea Fire that devastated areas around Santa Barbara. I recommend this collection of poetry. 

Skunk Cabbage

Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song 

(New York: Little Brown, 2019) 251 pages.

This is a delightful collection of essays by the late Brian Doyle. I heard so much about him at the HopeWord Writer’s Conference this past spring and this is my first of his books to read. One Long River of Song is a book to be savored and read slowly, over time. This book spent a couple of months on my nightstand and whenever I didn’t have anything else to read, I’d read from one to a half-dozen essays before bed. Some made me tear up, others brought laughter.

All these essays provide the reader something to ponder. Each essay stands on its own. Doyle handles diverse subjects, from how he learned humility to how to write the “perfect nature essay.” There is an essay on the school shooting, a somewhat fictional account of William Blakes trial, on otters and wolverines and the human heart (that maintains a 4/4 beat). Doyle, who was Roman Catholic, explores the church and the meaning of faith. As the essays come toward the end, they tend to be more and more about death, but even here there is wonder.

This collection was published by Doyle’s wife after his death in 2017. I recommend it! 

Carrot Quinn, The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom of the Rails in the American West 

(2021, Audible Books), 9 hours and 27 minutes. 

Someone had suggested that I read Quinn’s book, Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart. In looking up that title, I realized she’d written another book about riding the rails. I have done long distant hiking, but have never hopped a train. However, the lure has always been there, so I decided to start with this book. While there is a lot about catching trains and how to hide from the railroad police (who are not like the railroad bulls of the 1930s), this book is Quinn’s “coming-of-age” story. While I didn’t want to stop listening, it was hard to listen to much of Quinn’s story. Yet, she needs to be heard as she is not the only one to grow up in such difficult circumstances.

I found this book to be a cross between Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and Chad Faries, Drive Me Out of My Mind which I read in early 2020. Like Faries’ experiences, I found myself angry at Quinn’s childhood. No child should have to live in such a manner. While such an upbringing has helped make her who she is, I worry about other kids who didn’t make it.

Review of The Sunset Route

Quinn flips back and forth, from her adventures on a train to growing up with a mentally ill mother in Alaska. Her mother believes she is the Virgin Mary and often has weird visions. At times, unable to hold things together, her mother would forget to file for welfare and Quinn and her brother along with their mother would be homeless. It was a difficult as she learns at an early age to forage food from dumpsters. In her teens, she is taken from her mother and sent to her grandparents in Colorado. Then she runs away. She becomes a part of a drug and alcohol-free anarchist community and learns about riding rails. As she rides the rails, she reads Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book I read when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. 

It appears to me that throughout her life, Quinn keeps trying to find love and failing. Her mentally ill mother can’t love her. When her mother is sick, she says terrible things to her children. Her estranged father has abandoned the family and while he brought her a plane ticket on one occasion, isn’t able to show love to someone he abandoned as an infant. Her grandparents don’t know what to do with two teenagers when all the rest of children have grown. When her brother becomes an addict, there is another rift from one she had been able to depend on. And then there are the relationships to others, mostly to other women but also to men. While Quinn doesn’t find love, there are a few bright moments in her life when someone helps her out. 

At the end of the book (which has a big gap of the time when she hiked long distance trails) she seems to have come to peace with her situation. She and her brother have reconnected, as they both shared a terrible childhood. She even tries to find her mother, fearing that she might die in the cold in Anchorage. 

Recommendation

While many will find this book difficult to read. But stories like these need to be heard because so many of these stories are not heard and are hidden from society. 

Train Station in Iowa.

Catching up on my reading

I am trying to catch up on reading reviews. Below are four reviews that contain fiction, poetry, philosophy, and history. I will start with the lighter books and move on to the more heavy ones. There’s something here for everyone!

Aaron McAlexander, This Old Store 

(Stonebridge Press, 2014), 95 pages including photos and maps. 

There really is a place called Mayberry. It’s located along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Southwestern Virginia, twenty-some miles from Mt. Airy, NC. There was never much of a town here, just a few businesses and some farmers. Until the 1930s, there was a Post Office here. The store, where the Post Office resides, is still in business. The other reminder of the community that once existed is Mayberry Presbyterian Church. Aaron McAlexander, along with his late uncle, John Hassell Yeatts, have done their best to preserve the stories of this community. This is the fourth book I’ve read by McAlexander. It’s an easy read and a joy.

Throughout the countryside in these parts, there are lots of old boarded up stories. Many were two story stores, like Mayberry Trading Post. Most have been closed for decades. The Mayberry Store, which was built in 1892, remains open mainly because it is adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Today the store sells snacks, crafts, and souvenirs, along with jars of canned local treats from jams to chowchow.  

This was once a community center. People picked up their mail in this old building, in addition to obtaining kerosene for their lanterns and later gasoline for their car or tractor. Hardware and tools along with that which they couldn’t produce themselves could be purchased at the store. The store would also trade for locally produced goods, from apples to chestnuts, which the storekeeper hauled to Mt. Airy or Stuart, Virginia to sell. While the storekeeper never sold alcoholic drinks, there would often be a bootlegger around who would have a bottle or two hidden nearby so those who wanted a nip could be satisfied. On slow days, checkers would be played. 

Over the years, the store has changed hands many time (it’s been for sale for the last few years and from the scuttlebutt I recently heard, may be about ready to be sold again). McAlexander outlines these changes along with recalling stories from his mother and grandparents to his own stories of growing up in the area in the 1940s and 50s. 

Other reviews of McAlexander books I’ve read: The Last One to Leave MayberryShine On Mayberry MoonGreasy Bend: Ode to a Mountain Road.

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Ivan Doig, The Bartender’s Tale

Narrated by David Aaron Baker, 14 hours, 47 minutes; (2012, audiobooks, 2013)

It has been a while since I read Doig. Almost a quarter century ago, when I was living in the Great Basin of the American West, I discovered Doig and read two of his memoirs: House in Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind and Heart Earth. Living in an area where there were still sheepherders, Doig’s writings felt familiar. This is the first fiction I’ve read (actually listened to) by him and, God willing, it won’t be the last.

The book is told through the eyes of a child. This allows the author to lead us, in Rusty’s mind, down some wrong paths as a boy’s mind will often do. Is she my mother? What will happen if my father falls in love?  You’ll have to read the book to learn the answers to those question and others that I ask.

The story begins in the early 1950s, when Rusty was six years old and being raised by an aunt with a couple of older boys in Arizona. He’s looking forward to school just so he can have time away from these taunting nephews. Then, like a good western, an outsider rides into town to save him. He is reunited with his father, Tom Harry, whom he had only seen occasionally. His father lives in Gros Ventre, Montana, where he runs the Medicine Lodge Saloon.  

The novel then jumps ahead to the summer of 1960. Rusty is now twelve years old.  This is a summer of discovery. Rusty meets Zoe, a new girl in town whose parents have purchased the Top Spot, the local diner. The two of them make quite a pair spying on everyone and trying out new characters as if they’re in theater.  Throughout the summer, as everyone wonders if Kennedy will be the new President, there is a string of characters that make their way into town. One is Delano, an oral historian who wants to learn about the Fort Peck Dam project from Tom, who ran a bar there during the Great Depression. Delano is also interested in language patterns, which helps provide insight into the catchy phrases often thrown around by those visiting the bar. Also swinging into the Medicine Bar is Proxy, a former dancer in Fort Peck. In tow is her trouble daughter, Francine. Is Francine Rusty’s half-sister? Or his sister? Can Francine run one of the best-known saloons in Montana? 

There is a lot packed into that summer of 1960, as Doig slowly fills in the details of Rusty’s inquisitive mind. Doig captures the western dialect, which helps create a delightful come-of-age story. He captures the life of the sheepherders along with working into the story a Class D League baseball team which he describes as being one step up from a picnic softball game. There is also some fishing. Doig captures the beauty of place as he describes Montana and the Medicine Bar. 

Quote from their road trip from Arizona to Montana:

“My father always said, when stopping on a road trip in a place to pee, “nice joint you have here, even if it was as gloomy as a funeral parlor. I supposed I learned something of professional courtesy from these stops.” 

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Raymond Carver, All of Us: The Collected Poems 

(1996, New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2000), 386 pages including index, appendixes, plus Introduction and Editor’s Preface

I have only recently become acquainted with the writings of Raymond Carver who died at the age of 50 in 1988. He’s perhaps best known for his short stories, but I decided to sample a collection of his poetry. This collection was gathered and published after his death. While I was familiar with the poetry of Tess Gallagher before reading his volume, I did not know that she was Carver’s last wife. She provides both the Introduction to this work along with an extensive essay in the appendixes that served as an introduction to the last collection of Carver’s poetry. 

The book begins with earlier poems which are often raw and sometimes vulgar. Some reflect the views of an alcoholic and of loss relationships. Other poems in this section come from the author’s travels, especially in Europe. Often, in these poems, he weaves in history with his own experiences. Other travels take him into the wilderness of the American West, and on fishing trips. One poem that stood out to me was “To My Daughter,” where he warns her that alcoholism runs in the family and warning her not to drink like she’d seen her parents do. 

I found the poems in the last half of the book, written after he had quit drinking, to be more filled with wonder and gratitude. Here there are even more poems set around the Pacific Northwest. Fishing often comes up. Mixed into this section are many poems by Anton Chekhov. Sprinkled throughout the book are quotes and poems from other authors. Carver also brings other authors into his poetry such as Franz Kafka in “The Moon, The Train.” As the reader comes to the “first” end of the collection, the author knows he’s living on borrowed time. I had a sense of grace reading these poems. 

But just because I reached the end of the collection didn’t mean I was out of poems to read, as the first appendix contained a group of “uncollected poems” from No Heroics, Please. His wife’s essay at the end is also worth reading as it sheds much light onto their life together and the last group of poems in this collection. 

This is a large collection of poems. I spent a month and a half reading through them, often before bed, sometimes reading a poem several times. For those interested in poetry, this volume appears to me to be a “must read.”  Yes, some of the poems especially in the first part of the book can be quite raw, but so is life for many people. As one continues to read, one will also find grace and hope and beauty. 

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Arthur Herman, The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Artistole and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization 

(New York: Random House, 2014), 676 pages including notes, bibliography and index, or 25 hours and 26 minutes on Audible. 

I started listening to this book on Audible but became so engrossed into Herman’s survey of Western thought that I ended up buying the book so I could go back and read and study sections of it. This is a massive undertaking. Herman begins by describing Raphael’s painting, “The School of Athens” which is in the Vatican. Over the next few hundred pages, he will expand upon the various philosophers in the painting. He’s concentrates primarily on Plato and Aristotle, who are depicted in two camps on the canvas. On Plato’s side is Socrates, Pythagoras, Speusippus, Zenocrates, Plotinus, Epicurus, the Arab scholar, Avernoes, and Heraclitus. In Aristotle’s camp are Eudemus, Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Euclid, and Stabo. From these two camps come a creative tension between the idealist Plato and the more practical Aristotle that has driven Western thought for the past 2500 years. 

Herman takes the reader on a journey that begins in Greece and moves on to Alexander and across Europe.  He discusses the influence of each of the philosophers on the Roman world, medieval Christianity, into the renaissance, reformation, enlightenments and on into the 19th and 20th Century. He discusses how these two schools of thought shaped not only philosophy and religion, but physical and biological science, government, and economics. I compare reading this book to retaking the year of Western Civilization required in college when I was a student in the late 1970s. 

However, the book does not read like a textbook. Herman often draws on illustrations from art and for popular culture to make a point. And a few times, his writing seems to become “creative” as when he writes as to draw us back into a particular situation such as Michelangelo’s  stroll to the Sistine Chapel to paint, a cart rumbling down a cobbled road to the guillotine during the French Revolution, or Alexander von Humboldt encounter with a jaguar in the South American jungles.  

Herman’s thesis is that for a society to do well, it needs the creative tension that comes from Platonic idealism and Aristotelian materialism. When one side is over-emphasized, bad things happen. Plato leads to tyranny and Aristotle to stagnation. But when the two are in competition, society flourishes. While Herman could be critical of Hegel, there is a certain Hegelian logic in his thesis. 

I really enjoyed this book even though at times I felt he had to stretch things to keep everything lined up between Plato and Aristotle. I wish he had spent more time with Scottish Common-sense philosophy and with the work of Edmund Burke, but when you are trying to pack 2500 years into one volume, you can’t have everything. 

This is the second book I read by Arthur Herman. Several years ago, I read and enjoyed How the Scots Built the Modern World.

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Books on Poetry and Writing and a Poem

Mark Jarman, Dailiness: Essays on Poetry

(Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2020), 177 pages.  

I became acquainted with Jarman’s poetry through poems published in the Reformed Journal.  Dailiness consists of a series of long essays on various aspects of poetry. Originally, I thought I would use this as evening reading, but the essays were too long and deep for that. I found myself falling asleep. They required more attention, so I began to read them in the morning with better success. Not only do these essays need to be read, but they also need to be pondered. As they are independent of each other, I recommend reading one per sitting.  In each essay, Jarman muses about aspects of poetry as he reflects on a concept (like dailiness) while engaging in a conversation with poems throughout the ages. 

After opening with a reflection of the epic Gilgamesh, the author explores the role of metaphor and repetition in poetry. He insists on the need for one to write daily with two essays (dailiness) and devotes essays to poetry as devotion and as part of the religious life. Here, he attempts to save the George Herbert (the parson poet) from critiques of T. S. Eliot and Samuel Johnson. However, to Herbert’s credit, Coolridge appreciated his poetry and Simone Weil credits one of his poems for her Christian conversion. Jarman (as with Malcolm Guite who I review below) explores the work of Seamus Heaney. I found his concluding essay on the pronoun “Something” inspiring.  Reading this essay after church on Palm Sunday, which lead me to write the poem below.  

I liked the book but would only recommend it to those serious about poetry. In a good way I found myself often looking up words (not in a dictionary, but with google on my phone).  Like many books I read this one provided me with another book to check out, John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (University of Chicago, 2014). 

Now here is my poem:

Palm Sunday 2022

Something is happening and will happen this week.
Something so dark and terrible we can barely comprehend over the noise of this day 
filled with excitement and expectation 
as the Messiah rides into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.
For evil lurks behind these walls and in the minds of those in power, 
and soon, the expectation of the crowd will melt into the excitement of a spectacle 
as the innocence one dies and the guilty go free.

Something is happening and will happen this week.
Something so wonderful and hopeful we can barely comprehend over the noise of this day 
filled with excitement and expectation 
as the Messiah rides into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.
For the goodness of God prevails over evil and in the deep darkness of the week, 
on the stillness of the morning of the third day a light will burst from a tomb 
as the innocent one rises and the guilty pardoned. 

                                    -Jeff Garrison, April 10, 2022

Malcolm Guite, In Every Corner Sing: A Poet’s Corner Collection

 (Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 2018), 196 pages.

I had not read Guite when I heard him speak at the HopeWords Writing Conference in Bluefield earlier this month. While there, I purchased and had him sign this collection of his columns which appeared in Church Times, a British magazine. Each article is about 500 words or two to two and a half pages in length. Although English, Guite spent part of his years growing up in Canada. As I read this book, I enjoyed getting to know him better. Each article draws on poetry, from ancient to modern poets including a few from his own hand. 

 In them, he muses about poetry and the natural world. We learn of a man who enjoys many things, from smoking a pipe to walking his dogs. We also learn of his deep faith in Christ, his delight at the natural world, and how we are connected to those who came before us. Most of these essays have a nice twist at the end. In one story, he marvels at an old bridge as he canoes “Willow” on a river through the bridge. The last two arches in the bridge are “new.” They were rebuilt after having been destroyed Cromwell’s era (17th Century) to prevent an army from taking a town.  After flirting with the bridge, the poetry of Tennyson and Eliot, he ends marveling at the bridge God has built through Christ that cannot be destroyed. 

This was a perfect wind-down book for the evening as I could read through four or five of the seventy-three columns, before closing the book, turning out the light, and going to bed. 

Peter Yang, The Art of Writing: Four Principles for Great Writing that Everyone Needs to Know

(TCK Publishing, 2019), 89 pages. 

Yang distills the writing process into four principles: Economy, Transparency, Variety, and Harmony.  And, with homage to “economy”, he does this in 89 pages. A lot of people could benefit from these principles to help clarify their thoughts on paper. This is the value of this small volume. While this may not be on par with William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, few people will wade through Zinsser’s more detailed prose. What Yang provides are simple ideas, each backed up with a couple of stories and examples. For the person just wanting to learn some basic techniques to make their writing appeal to more audiences, The Art of Writing would be a good place to begin. Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange for an honest review of the work.

Saying Goodbye to Color

Mayberry Church Road on the 1st of November

My eyes have feasted on a beautiful colored landscape for the past month. Slowly the trees turned color. But with last week’s heavy frost, the trees are now mostly brown or their leaves have fallen to the earth, to rot into the soil and nourish another season.

I thought I would share some of my favorite photos from this color season, along with two poems. One I wrote on Sunday evening, having done my 4 1/2 mile hike to Laurel Fork and back. Once I climbed my way up out of the hollow and the forest gave way to the hayfields, I was treated to a perfect ecliptic in the sky with four heavenly bodies (a crescent moon, Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter) visible. The other poem was written while taking Amtrak’s Crescent (formerly Southern Railroads “Southern Crescent”) from Danville, VA to Atlanta.

Mayberry Church Road in late afternoon

Ecliptic 

The young moon, just above the horizon,
flirts with Venus as darkness descends.
The red of sunset has faded 
except a thin line just above the trees to the west, 
as Saturn and Jupiter, the only other objects visible
look on with approval.

Venus and the new moon. Saturn and Jupiter would be to the left, behind the oak still clinging to its leaves. Photo taken with an iPhone, handheld.
Laurel Fork early in October, with just a hint of color.

Bear Creek Road in late October

Nursery Road in late afternoon

Asleep on the Southern Crescent

Maturing moon high overhead
fills my compartment with light 
as the blowing whistle up front
announces our fleeting presence,
followed by clanging bells 
and the flashing red lights 
of the crossing guards.

The train snakes into the Carolinas,
with stops, I’m told, in Greensboro, 
High Point, Salisbury, Charlotte, Gastonia,
Spartanburg, Greenville, and Clemson.
But I sleep soundly and wake up in Toccoa, Georgia.

At breakfast, I’ve learned we lost a bit of time
in Charlotte, as they worked on a toilet,
but I never knew anything had happened.

My compartment at daybreak, on my return trip from Atlanta.

Mia, my frequent hiking companion (for short hikes)
The leaves may be gone, but there is still beauty to observe. Early November, behind Nester’s Cemetery.

Two Books: Poetry and Ministry

Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery

(NY: Random House, 2001), 242 pages, no illustrations.

A delightful collection of essays that describes Lischer’s first three years as a pastor in Southern Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri. He arrives driving a Ford Pinto. Fresh out of school, he finds his church in the middle of a cornfield. It takes time for this well-educated pastor to relate to his congregation, but he gradually begins to love these people. Nationwide, Civil Rights and Vietnam are in the news, but this little church seems to be far from the headlines. Lischer fights over the American flag in the sanctuary and the gossip that seems to spread so fast that the pastor is the last to know. Providing marital counseling to a couple dealing with adultery, Lischer lets a “shit” slip out. To his amazement, considering their issues, this offends the couple. He conducts a graveside funeral with military honors and learns, at the last minute, that the honor guard made up of local veterans, are firing live bulletins. He deals with greedy funeral directors trying to upsell fancy caskets that are beyond what the beavered can pay. In telling this story, Fischer also shars the quirks of this congregation which publishes everyone’s giving in their annual report. 

While Lischer claims to be a Lutheran, he doesn’t indicate which synod he belongs. But in the essays, he writes about taking on a teaching position at an exile group from Concordia seminary. This would put him on the “liberal” wing of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. I know this because in my first church, there was a small Missouri Synod church in town. The pastor had been in seminary at this time of a fundamentalist take-over. He left the seminary to attend and graduate from the “seminary in exile.” Many in the church wasn’t happy with him being cozy with those who supported women’s leadership roles in the church. 

The stories in this collection can be funny and sad. As I was reading them, I thought a lot about my own first pastorate and how many similar stories we shared. This book might be paired with Craig Barnes’ book, Diary of a Pastor’s Soul, which I read last year. Barnes writes about a pastor’s last year before retirement. It would be beneficial for a seminarian or someone considering the ministry to read both both books. 

Gregory Orr, A Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry 

(New York: Norton, 2018), 325 pages. 

What an incredible book. While I’m no expert on poetry, or literature about writing poetry, I found this book helpful, interesting, and easy to read. The only other book I’ve read writing poetry was Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. I feel Orr’s book to be superior. Unlike Oliver, he doesn’t spend a lot of time discussing meter and some of the more technical issues of poetry.  While it has been years since I read Oliver, from what I remember Orr goes much deeper into the use of metaphors and of how words in poetry brings understanding through naming, singing, saying, and imagining. While not spending as much time on meter, Orr does dedicate many pages to how words sound when place together in the process of creating a poem. I found Orr’s writing to be helpful not just for the understanding of poetry, but also for the understanding of life. In this way, the book reads like a gift. While this book could be used as a textbook, with many helpful exercises, it was not dry as one might expect a textbook to be. 

Drawing from his vast bank of knowledge from poetry, literature, mythology, the Bible, philosophy, education, and other fields, Orr sees poetry residing in the paradox of a chaotic world and a desire for order. It takes both to create poetry. Just as God speaks above the chaos in Genesis 1, and creates the cosmos, poetry attempts to bring order to the chaotic. Poetry helps us understand the world in which we live. Drawing from Greek mythology (and from the writings of Nietzsche), he recalls the interplay between Dionysus (the god of chaos and ecstasy) and Apollos (the god of beauty and harmony). Art requires both. 

Poetry allows us to image a better world as we cross the “threshold” between chaos and order.  In this manner, poetry can be political and used by the powerless to challenge their oppression.  

Orr sees two ways of our ordering the world, that lead to two types of poems: lyric and narrative. The lyric describes something in the moment, bringing intensity to a landscape or an emotion. Orr sees such poetry as being more dominate in America today. Narrative poetry is more story based. Of course, poems don’t always fall into one of these two camps. Many (if not most) poems are somewhere in between the two camps, maybe closer to one form or the other.  For my own poetry, while I see some of both, most of what I have attempted to write falls into (or close to) the narrative camp. 

This book is “illustrated” with many poems drawn from different times in history. While there could have been more poetry from cultures other than the West (there are some), I think this is excusable as he writes for an English-speaking audience. For both the poet and the reader of poetry, he suggests keeping a notebook of our favorite poems, so that we can go back an examine them and learn their meanings. This exercise seemed to be a good idea, but I have yet to do it. 

There is also a very helpful glossary of poetry terms at the end of the book.  I would love to reread this book with friends and hear what others think. 

A Walk in the Rain

The Day before the Equinox 

Despite the threat of rain on the last day of summer
I take an evening walk down Laurel Fork Road
noticing the seasonal changes.
along the edge of the hayfield
where the staghorn sumac and dogwoods have turned red. 

The green leaves of the maples and oaks in the forest beyond
have already lost their luster,
while golden rods brighten the ditch banks 
next to Queen Anne, who has rolled her lace into a ball 
ready to stow in the drawer for winter. 

At the cemetery by the Primitive Baptist Church
an eight-point buck stops in the middle of the road,
looking at me for the longest time
as if wondering what I am doing out in this mess
 before jumping off the road and over the gravestones.

The drizzle becomes a rain shortly after passing the church,
but as I leave the payment for gravel, 
the hayfields for the dense woods,
the rain is not as noticeable until a breeze shakes the trees
shedding its accumulated moisture on me.

I continue, zipping up my rain jacket, 
but return earlier than I’d like, in the fading gray,
for there will be no full harvest moon to guide me tonight
as tears now pour from the sky,
each drop pinging off my jacket and into my ears.

Yet, I’m delighted when I get close enough to my lane,
with water running down my bare legs,
 to be greeted by cheerful Halloween faces
painted on the sides of three round haybales
in front of my neighbor’s field. 

My neighbor’s “jack-o-lanterns” taken today in the rain

Resurrection: A Poem

For some reason, this post didn’t make it over from the transfer from my old thepulpitandthepen.com blog. So I decided to “resurrect” it and add a few photos of the river from which this journey begins.

Resurrection

There is a section in the Hastings Cemetery in Michigan where children who died during or before birth are buried. It’s at the back corner of the cemetery, on a ledge overlooking the Thornapple River. Years ago, during a spring flood, some of the graves were lost to the river which flows into the Grand and then on into Lake Michigan as the waters make their way to the sea. While tragic, I try to make the best of the situation.

Bury me with the children who died prematurely
and planted in simple graves, at the back of the cemetery,
far from the gaze of the mourner, ‘cept broken-hearted parents.

Bury me under a huge sycamore, 
whose broad leaves shade the ground in summer
and white bark appears ghostly on a foggy morn.

Bury me where the river makes its sharp bend 
its swift waters carving into the bank.
There, I can hear the river call as it rushes past.  

Bury me close to the ledge where in a few years or maybe a century,
a spring flood will free me and those kids
and I’ll lead them on a grand adventure. 

In our box boats we’ll shoot through the gates of the Middleville and Irving dams,
forgetting the dangers for it no longer matters to the dead.
We’ll laugh as we catch an eddy below and float in circles.

At Alaska, the village-not the state, we’ll shoot the rapids
and when we meet the Grand, we’ll chat with those fishing for salmon
and wave to the pedestrians on the bridges at Grand Rapids.

I hope it is night, with waves breaking over the piercing lighthouse,
when we leave the river at Holland, for the lake. We’ll then float more slowly
watching the lights on shore fade from sight as we navigate by the North Star.

Time will slow as we slip from one lake to another
and over those falls at Niagara that terrify all but the dead,
before making our way into Canada and down that great waterway.

And years later, if our wooden boats hold, we’ll slip out the St. Lawrence
and into the cold waters of the North Atlantic along with ice bergs,
riding the Gulf Stream as it heads north and then east and back south. 

We’ll bed down with wintering puffins
and watch whales play as they ply the sea, while we pass
Iceland and the Faroes, Scotland and Ireland, and on beyond the Azores.

Bury me with the children, in the back of the cemetery,
and in time the river will call, and we’ll float
to where peaceful waters gather.  

-jg  September 2017

Walking up Laurel Fork Road

The creek paralleling Laurel Fork Road (take a few weeks ago)

The sun drops below the hills.
It’s time to leave the broad waters of Laurel Fork
and follow the sounds of rushing water 
paralleling the muddy dirt road lined with mountain laurel. 

Reaching Hereford Road,
the mare in the pasture looks up from her hay
and gaits over to the fence. 
I rub her head and she presses tight against my hand,

but only for moment as the first stars appear. 
I lengthen my stride, 
and pass the intersection with Dusty Trail. 
I start the steep climb,   

following hairpin curves out of the darken hollow.
where shadows of bare tree limbs
illuminated by a waxing gibbous moon,
slouch across the road like arthritic fingers.

my attempt to capture a moon shadow

The afternoon wind has somewhat settled,
yet I hear the squeak of a widow maker in the woods,
and a truck in the distance, 
grinding gears as it climbs Highway 58

Halfway up, the enchanting sound of water
Setting out on a journey propelled by gravity, 
That begins in the hillside springs, and destined, eventually, 
for the Gulf, disappears. 

Then the road levels and the canopy opens
Bright Sirius of Canis Major appear high overhead, 
the dog of the winter sky, jumping with joy,  
as he follows his master, Orion, into spring. 

To the west, just a tinge of red remains of the fading day.
Along the horizon, the lights of homes perched on hills,
appear to twinkle like stars 
when watched through the trees while walking.

Picking up my pace,
I pass the Primitive Baptist Church,
the old one room school,
Bear Creek Road and the cemeteries. 

A few minutes later, I’m home.
Opening the door, into the light and warmth,
my own dog, despite nursing a sore leg,
jumps with joy. jg 2-23-2021 

In Memory of Baseball (a poem with a recording and a book review)

The 2020 baseball season was scheduled to kickoff this past weekend. Unfortunately, it has been postponed due to the current pandemic. So here is a poem I wrote this weekend (you can even listen to it–how neat is that) along with a review of a book I recently read with my book club on the 1949 baseball season. Enjoy and wash your hands!.

I am not sure why there is not the arrow to start in the strip below, but if you click just to the left of the 00:00, you can start the recording. It’s a minute and 16 seconds long. 

David Halberstam, Summer of ‘49, (1989, New York: HarperPerennial, 2002), 354 pages, with a bibliography, index, and some black and white photographs.

 

In the post wars years, as players returned from the war, baseball captured the imagination of Americans. It was America’s sport. Football and basketball prominence was still in the future. The ballpark was a place where the melting pot vision could be witnessed firsthand. Immigrant children like the DiMaggios (there were three brothers who played in the majors) were second generation Italians and stars. Then, staring in 1947 with Jackie Robinson, African-Americans were included in the roosters. Postwar ball reached a new height with the thrilling 1948 pennant race in the American League. In the days before playoff series, the top team in each league went to the World Series, and if there was a tie, there was a one game playoff. Three teams were in contention in ‘48: the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox’s and the New York Yankees. The Indians won, leaving the younger Red Sox’s and the older Yankees disappointed.

The 1949 season turned out to be just as exciting as the Yankees and Red Sox’s battled it out for the American League pennant. The season began with the Yankees great Joe DiMaggios (who’d bridged the team from the Ruth/Gehrig era to the Mantle/Maris era) being out with an injured foot. The other great hitter was the Red Sox’s Ted Williams. Also playing for the Red Sox’s was Joe’s brother, Dominic. It was an exciting season in which the Yankees won the pennant in the last inning of the last game as the two teams battled it out.

Halberstam, who was a teenager during this season, captures the excitement that came down to the final inning. Once again, the Red Sox’s are disappointed. The Yankees win. Halberstam tells the story of this season, providing insight into the financial workings of baseball as well the changes that were taking place. This was a time when players still mostly traveled in trains, but planes were making their debut. It was also a time that most games, which had previously not been broadcast locally, were being on the air and great names were emerging in the broadcast booth, many who would soon become the well-known reporters who overshadowed the previously honored sportswriters. Even television made an appearance during the World Series. And for the Yankees, new names were rising up such as their new manager, Casey Stengel, and their rookie catcher, Yogi Berra. Other players who would grow into greatness were also beginning to make themselves known such as Willie Mays (whom the Yankees took a pass on due to his race).

Although I have never liked the Yankees, I was impressed with their teams discipline and how they instilled hard playing in each member of the team. Joe DiMaggio exemplifies this when asked why he plays so hard in games in which little was at stake and he responded that there might be someone in the crowd who’d never seen him play. For anyone who enjoys baseball, this is a good read.

Aunt Callie’s Place

Francis Wilhoit was born in 1920. He was a little younger than my grandmother, and he died a number of years before her, in 2010, at the age of 90. I never met him (as far as I know), but my Grandmother used to always tell me that I reminded her of him. When I was in college, she gave me a copy of his book, The Politics of Massive Resistance, and I expect I’m the only one in the family to have read it. It deals with the white reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. Wilhoit was outspoken against racism at a time few Southerners were speaking up about the problems. He was a professor at Drake University in Iowa. Years ago my grandmother sent me a copy of a poem that he wrote about her childhood home. Callie McKenzie was her mother (my great-grandmother) and Kenneth was her father (my great-grandfather). Wilhoit wrote this poem in 1977, which was over a decade after my great-grandmother’s death and seven or eight years after my great-grandfather’s death. Now all from those generations are gone.

Unfortunately the spacing Wilhoit used in the poem was lost when I posted it in WordPress. I will have to see if I can get it corrected (but not tonight).

“Aunt Callie” is to the left. Next is my father and in front of him, my Uncle Larry. My great-grandfather Kenneth is holding me, and my grandmother is on the right. The picture was probably taken late 1957 or early 1958

 

“Out at Aunt Callie’s Place”
By F. M. Wilhoit

Based on a poem by James Whitcomb Riley
September 1977

Pleasant it was, O yes I know,
In the good old days in the glow
Of youth, when summer at last had come
And the call of the country beat like a drum,
And we went visiting, our hearts never glum
Out to Aunt Callie’s Place.

It all seems only yesterday!
Though I’m now aged and silvery gray—
Out in the country, by the side of the road,
We aimlessly wandered through Nature’s abode,
Not a fear in the world, not a care to unload,
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place

We tramped the lowgrounds and crossed the wood
Where many an ancient oak tree stood,
Where jack rabbits sprang from tall wiregrass,
And honeybees buzzed in a swarming mass,
And threatened to sting as we tried to pass,
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place.

And down to the house of Tom and Kate;
And up to the Garrisons’ vast estate;
And on to the Old Place, over to Culdee,
From tobacco labors happily free—
Our faith as firm as the tallest tree
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place.

Yes, I see her in the screened-in porch,
Her face as bright as a miner’s torch;
And Uncle Kenneth and the children too!
Wasn’t it great, for me and you,
To place among kinfolks, tried and true,
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place?

The apples, the grapes and the gingerbread
And the jams and cakes—O how we were fed!
And the corn in the peas and the deep berry pies—
It all seemed to me like Paradise;
And the more we’d eat the more she’d devise
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place.

In the old frame-house in the evening cool,
With supper done—as a general rule—
We’d take and talk and talk and talk
And listen to the crickets loudly squawk,
Or maybe join in a nighttime walk
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place.

And many a time have you and I—
Barefoot kids in those days gone by—
Built mighty castles in the summer sands,
Dreaming of far-off, strange new lands,
Knowing we’d all meet Life’s demands,
Out at Aunt Callie’s Place.

And O, my cousins, how the times have changed,
By age and progress all disarranged;
She’s waiting, though: a smile on her face,
Patient as ever, full of God’s grace,
Calling us back, with a spiritual embrace,
Back to Aunt Callie’s Place!

 

A few note (from me, not Wilhoit):

Wiregrass naturally grows under longleaf pines.

We lived several hundred feet east of “Callie’s Place” when I was a child (we moved when I was 6). I can attest that the bee’s my great-grandfather kept were known for their temperament and we always stayed away from the hives.

Culdee Presbyterian Church is the family church, which was located South of “Callie’s Place,” on the other side of the Lower Little River

My great-grandmother was known for her berry pies that she always baked in a wood-fired oven (there were two ovens in the house when I was a child, a gas range and a wood stove, and she mostly cooked and baked on the wood stove). She would set them out on the back porch (which was screened) to cool.

One memory of mine that Wilhoit must have forgotten was the nasty spittoon on the back porch and how my great-grandmother loved dip snuff and, I assume, my great-grandfather chewed tobacco. The spittoon was for when they had to spit it out.