the church of poetry

I think we've burned EJ out....heh!

When I've, in recent times, been evaluating a possible protege, the question I ask first up is this:

"To you, is poetry a hobby, a job, a career or a religion?"

If they answer "religion", they are acceptable to me. Because that's what separates the poets from those who just write poetry.

Poetry is, to me, a definition of the relationship between the individual and the Almighty. Its how I express myself to the universe, which I do not perceive as silent and unperceiving, but rather as intelligent on a scale we can only imagine, and then only badly.

Tag (Dan McTaggart) and I were discussing this the other evening. I was raised a Southern Baptist (before they decided cultural and political viewpoint was more important than the will of God), later joined the Episcopal faith to please my second wife, then converted to Society of Friends (Quaker), but was born a poet. It is how I interpret the will of God and how I express myself to Him/Her/Them/It.

I told Tag that to me poetry is like some great lens through which I view the universe, but if you examine that metaphor, you must realize that while you are examining the bug on the ground through your magnifying glass, the bug is perceiving you through bent light as well, and thus the universe (and those within it) sees you differently.

In the end, I feel the most honest and worthy when I am doing what I was born to do, as Jesus expressed in several parables and metaphors concerning talents, and lamps and baskets. All my life I have had to deal with individuals who did not understand, comprehend, or support that part of me which was the truest, surest, purest part of who and what I am, who would rather I be what they wanted that what I was. In the end, all of those relationships faltered and fell, even when I tried to please the other person out of a sense of charity and affection, because, when I lost my faith, I was not me anymore, and you cannot love without a sense of who you are and what you are bringing to the altar.

To paraphrase "Chariots of Fire":

"When I write, I feel His pleasure."

May you find your faith.