Prayer and poetry arise from the unspeakable, mirroring the soul’s appetite for beauty, unity and wholeness.
In the Orthodox understanding/experience of the world, the interior world, of which the exterior is but a reflection, man was created in a state of pristine innocence, the nous clear as windows. As hieromonk Damascene writes in Christ the Eternal Tao, and St Gregory of Sinai, quoted in The Philokalia, he knew no mental distraction, following the principle of the universe, the Logos, God’s Word.
This universe is ordered, it is liturgical. The earth resolves by revolving in ordered patterns, we experience seasons, pulls, a silent drawing forth – again, internally as well as externally. The universe is one verse of God’s breath invigorating life, from mountaintops down to vibrating photons and electrons. And so good poetry, I think, reflects this natural, even musical process of becoming.
Poems, like icons in the Orthodox Church, signify something of greater, even timeless, value. The Greek word for poetry is poiesis, which is a verb meaning to transform or continue the world. It is an action, a movement beyond death. This movement is experienced both individually as well as communally through the Church, in her cycles, liturgically in liturgies of Saints John Chrysostom, Basil and James as well as the psalms.
Words are vessels through which we share ideas, emotions and experiences in attempts to express and glorify the uncreated. St Nicodemus of Mount Athos writes that “God has placed man to be a sort of macrocosmos – a ‘greater world’ within the small one,” elucidating that man is a sort of bridge between the visible and invisible worlds. Poetry is a gate into this mystery.
Translator Tony Barnstone notes how in classical Chinese painting, the white space defines what forms emerge. The way a sky’s negative space in painting defines mountains and trees, so too a mind polished of thoughts and passions by prayer and fasting mirrors the light shining before it. Like apostolic fishermen, some poets – - and the poems of Saints Romanos and Symeon, in particular – - cast nets over the whole of the universe for nourishment. Like prayer, good poems arise from the unspeakable and reflect the soul’s appetite for wholeness, unity, beauty. Barnstone is right. If we place an ear against our heart, while reading poetry one discovers not only what the poem says but what it does.
Magnus Frangipani writes children novels, poetry and non-fiction. On a pilgrimage to India, he found Christ in a Himalayan cave and converted to Orthodoxy in Alaska upon his return to America. Magnus lives and prays in Port Townsend, Washington, where he attends St Herman’s Orthodox Church. Glory to Christ our God for all things.
November 13, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Thank you for your thoughtful exposition on the importance and even the power of poetry. I love that you bring in the analogy to visual art and the fact that the strength of the form is as much in what is in the background, that is, not explicitly there. And in poetry the words must be so carefully chosen as to ultimately end up beyond my personal ability to do it well. And I envy those like yourself who can (a simple Google search finds your blogs).
You have a particular gift for descriptions that challenge all the senses. And you prove the point that has been made several times in this wonderful series of writers and artists. To be Orthodox is to cherish the Created Universe as a good. And the response of the soul to this realization is to both bask in beauty and praise the Author of all Existence. And when narrative fails us because too many words can’t express it, then perhaps poetry can come closer.
November 15, 2011 at 8:01 pm
The universe is liturgical…that’s wonderful.
December 8, 2011 at 6:27 am
In Wounded by Love Elder Porphyrios says, “Whoever wishes to become a Christian must first become a poet.” I suppose the love and suffering of a poet must be very akin to what it means to be a true Christian.
I enjoyed your post.