Poetry as prayer

scores of prayers like rescue rings I had crossed the bridge just 20 minutes before it fell. a lecture for the University of Minnesota September, 2012 TO EXPRESS: Joy Thanksgiving Grief Sorrow Anger Just about anything Why do we pray? Need Self-reflection Inspiration Community Duty Service How are they different? Medium: Words Goal: Communicate Require: Integrity Style: Elevated/compressed Flannery O'Connor: "I write to find out what I know." I write poetry when something nags at me and I need to put it into words. The words themselves teach me, by giving me my own thoughts back in word form. The trouble is, in word form, my thoughts are changed. And then I have to add more words to change my thoughts back again to what I thought I meant. It's kind of like talking to myself, except that I'm learning as I listen. Lucille Clifton the mississippi river empties into the gulf and the gulf enters the sea and so forth, none of them emptying anything, all of them carrying yesterday forever on their white tipped backs, all of them dragging forward tomorrow. it is the great circulation of the earth's body, like the blood of the gods, this river in which the past is always flowing. every water is the same water coming round. everyday someone is standing on the edge of this river, staring into time, whispering mistakenly: only here. only now. I think poetry is like prayer. Writing a poem is an act of faith. How else are poetry and prayer alike? Poetry isn't always addressed to a Higher Power. Poetry is often secular. Poetry is not intended to facilitate worship. We write poetry for these same reasons. The river enters the gulf and the gulf enters the sea etcetera like the blood of gods… every water the same water coming round… everyday someone staring into time whispering mistakenly: only here… only now… Scripture and hymns are often in verse. We memorize and recite them. We seek them out for comfort, companionship, or community. We recognize something "holy" in them. They address the mysterious. They aim for a better world. Their uses are similar. Q: Why are prayers "elevated"? Do we seek to please God with pretty words? Q: Why are prayers brief? Are we conscious of wasting God's time? Often the need to write a poem resembles the need to pray: It comes on inexplicably. It seems to follow an inner voice. It comes of crisis. It comes of wonder. It has a question in its heart. On August 1, 2007, the Interstate Highway 35W Bridge (Minnesota's fifth busiest) fell into the Mississippi River during the evening commute. 13 were killed. 145 were injured. ...unless you consider "art" a Higher Power... ...unless you consider Art-making divine... ...unless you consider reading, which is a private act of contemplation, a kind of worship. I turned to poetry for comfort that day, and eventually discovered a poem by Lucille Clifton. Two years later, I hadn't written a single poem about the collapse, but it was nagging at me. You could almost say I felt "called" to write about it. I hesitated. The collapse seemed like too big a subject, and I had too many strong feelings about it. Anger Sadness Fear Injustice Surivor's guilt Embarrassment Besides, who was I to write a poem about such a thing? I would allow myself just 35 words. So I set myself a limitation. 35 words. I began by re-writing Clifton's poem, which now felt somehow holy to me. I wrote the words one at a time, each on a separate line, in order to study them more carefully. 35 words. I could manage that. So I did it again. I loved this. "Whispering mistakenly." As if trying to capture time were a misguided prayer. My cousin called from across town the hour the bridge went down. Are you okay? Fine, fine, I said. Good-bye, Good-bye. The call went dead. But I love my cousin. So I held the line. ...and I loved how the poems seemed to "fall" down the page. And where had they been going, those thirteen gone? - Dinner with a friend. - Bakery customers all over town. - Greek folk dancing lessons beneath Saint Mary’s Greek Orthodox dome. - Home. - Home. - Home. - Home. - Home. - Home. - Home. I thought about those 13 who were killed. I started researching their stories in the STAR TRIBUNE Which reminds me of another reason we pray: to remember, or bless. On that fateful day when the bridge fell, it was during the 7 o'clock hour that rescue efforts began to slow and the dead were counted... I wanted this poem to toll the bell. Each one as sturdy as the last, came scores of prayers like rescue rings. What gods did guide those bouyant things? and why’d some take up living weight and others come for some too late? One more poem, and then I'll tell you about the rescue rings. Maybe I wanted to call my readers to prayer. By singing of beginnings the great folk hymn ends: When we’ve been here ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’ve first begun. Amen. Recognize this from church, maybe? It's the last verse of Amazing Grace. Amen? Well... not quite. In fact, I didn't say AMEN to this project until three years later, when I'd written ... you guessed it ... 35 of these little poems. But I've gotten ahead of myself. I promised to tell you about the rescue rings. Five years earlier, I'd met Swedish artist Maja Spasova at Ragdale, a retreat center near Chicago. by Todd Boss Kind of like a prayer retreat, but for making art. I said I had no idea what she was talking about. Maja is a public artist, which means she makes art for public spaces. When she heard about the 35W Bridge collapse, she e-mailed me to say she wanted to collaborate with me to create an installation about it, in the Mississippi River. So she drew me some pictures. Maja wanted to anchor 35 oversized rescue rings just upriver from the collapse site. The rings, she said, would be symbolic of aid and fragility, safety and salvation. Well, it turns out you can't just anchor a bunch of rescue rings in the Mississippi River. We had to get permission from: The Department of Natural Resources The Parks & Rec Board The City of Minneapolis The Army Corps of Engineers The US Coast Guard The State Historic Preservation Office and neighborhood groups We also needed donations of giant inner tubes, white paint, rope and anchors. I said, "Huh?" And then I said, "Amen!" Somehow I sensed that a prayer was being answered. Meanwhile, I was wondering whether my 35 poems should go out in search of a publisher. Six of them had already landed in my second poetry collection, PITCH (W. W. Norton & Co.) but ... What to do with the rest? 35 poems isn't enough to make a full-length collection, and I wasn't sure this topic was of interest to anyone beyond Minnesota... I sent the whole sequence to Laurie Hertzel, BOOKS editor of the STAR TRIBUNE, and asked her advice. Laurie sent the poems to her editor. Her editor sent them to HER editor. And pretty soon the STAR TRIBUNE wanted to publish the WHOLE WORKS and host the SOUND COMPOSITION online, and invite 35-word poems from readers. Maja's sound compositions of Minnesotans reading my poems can still be heard by dialing 612/573-5900. And the entire sequence of 35 poems can be read at StarTribune.com/35wPoems I started showing Maja my 35 poems-in-progress. She said she wanted to hear them in the voices of Minnesotans, and mix them all together into a sound composition that would accompany the installation. As in: "Lift every voice and sing." In the end, "PROJECT 35W" was a huge success. It was covered on two local TV news programs, and caused thousands of people to pause and reflect. Its contemplative nature made it a kind of "zen garden" in the water. The installation was only on view temporarily, from August 1-31, 2012. 1st off: I'm not talking only of "religious" prayer. I'm talking about prayer as a cry, a call, a voice in the darkness, regardless of religion. And I'm not talking about "religious" faith. I'm talking about faith in humanity, faith in oneself, hope, a dream for the future. The STAR TRIBUNE told me that they had reported on the 35W Bridge collapse so much over the past 5 years, that they weren't sure how to handle the 5th anniversary as journalists. My poems gave the newspaper a perfect way to mark the occasion sensitively, with integrity, and elevate the moment to the level of art. I'm not a particularly religious person, but I got to thinking about all the people who must have immediately prayed for the victims of the collapse, the moment they saw it on CNN that day. Prayers like rescue rings... Poems like rescue rings... Amazing Grace was first a poem, most likely chanted by the congregation. Thank you. Sometimes blind trust is all you've got. My poem was beginning to feel like a great gift I could give to my community. Writing these poems, I was conscious that victims' families might one day read them, and that required me to employ a great deal of empathy as I went, and to consider what service these poems might perform. When I read that one of the victims had been on her way to church to teach a dance class, I knew I wanted that in my poem.