Poetry – Page 23 – Feminism and Religion

Resurrection Garden, Resurrection Feast by Elizabeth Cunningham

In John’s account of the Resurrection, Mary Magdalen mistakes Jesus for the gardener. Or perhaps it is not a mistake or not just a mistake but also a poetic truth. In any event, John’s Gospel makes clear: the Resurrection takes place in a garden!

(For the feminist significance of horticulture, I refer you to Carol Christ’s recent post on this site: Women and Weeding, the first 10,000 years .)

Many prominent (male) theologians, historians, anthropologists, and psychoanalysts among them James Frazer, Jung, and C.S. Lewis made the case for and/or against (in Lewis’ case) Jesus being another dying rising god of vegetation with Christianity borrowing imagery and ritual from earlier or even contemporary cults. The argument against insists that Jesus’s life, death and resurrection is historical, redemptive, and unique. From a tour of Bloglandia, the debate pro and con appears to continue unabated. I say better to pull weeds (if you are lucky enough to have a garden) than pontificate. Continue reading “Resurrection Garden, Resurrection Feast by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Painting Maya Angelou by Angela Yarber

Author. Performer. Activist. Poet. Actress. Playwright. There are few others whose accomplishments are as prestigious, prolific, or expansive as Maya Angelou’s. I initially encountered her work in a ninth grade literature class. The first of her seven autobiographies was our assigned reading. I voraciously consumed every word of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, my heart filled with grief, my eyes filled with tears, my mind filled with questions. It is no wonder this book is the most acclaimed of all her autobiographies, books of poetry, and essays. As a fourteen year-old, my mind was opened to the power of stories, particularly the stories of those vastly different from oneself, and to the oppression black women like Angelou experienced in the United States. As a native white Southerner, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was my first foray into grappling with the nuances of white privilege.

In college, my creative writing professor packed all ten of the creative writing minors into a van to drive to a neighboring college where Angelou was lecturing. I sat in awe, riveted by every word. And upon the completion of my Ph.D., I moved to Winston-Salem, the place Angelou calls home. I have yet to meet her. If I could, I’d surely hand her the icon I painted in her honor, knowing that my words would fail to express how profound my gratitude is for the work she has done in our world. Continue reading “Painting Maya Angelou by Angela Yarber”

Sanctuary of Echoes by Natalie Weaver

Tomorrow I will have the unique opportunity to hear my son recite a poem I wrote before his class. The students were invited to select a poem to memorize and perform along with props or costumes as suited the material. The only conditions were that the poem be a minimum of twelve lines, published in a book, and in good taste. A poorly chosen poem, he said, would result in perpetual detention.

I was excited when he expressed enthusiasm for the assignment. I asked him what kind of poem he would like to learn. Something humorous? Something dramatic? Something tragic? Something about love? War? I read to him first those famous opening words of Virgil’s Aeneid: Arma virumque cano (I sing of arms and a man…). I thought surely he would be intrigued by the rhythm and the promise of such a tale. He asked for some other options, so I presented favorites from the Medieval Hebrew canon. I taught him Adon Olam, since he was curious about learning poetry in a foreign language. He liked it quite a bit and learned how to pronounce the Hebrew, but this was not his choice. I pulled out selections from Catullus’ eulogies for his brother. I searched Sappho for something playful. We read more contemporary options from the usual suspects in an anthology of poetry that I had used in a college course: Frost, Dickinson, Poe. I even introduced him to the seductive “duende” of the great early 20^th century Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca in his Poet in New York.

Continue reading “Sanctuary of Echoes by Natalie Weaver”

Melding Consciousness by Safa Plenty

We, becoming lost

in the chaotic whirlwind of existence,

within its patterns and dimensions,

between seven layers of separation,

weaving us through

a multitude of realities.

We, puzzling at hairline fractures,

arising from lapses of our consciousness,

exposing our humanness

agitating our frontal lobes,

levering us from our perception

into a sensory mode.

We, portal points of perception

passing from potential

to actual existence in an instant

to bear witness

to the infinite storehouses

of what loved to be known

through the senses.

Yes, this Out-breath of pure existence

beyond dimensions situated

in space and time,

clay and water,

grape and wine,

beats and rhymes

suspended in between

bap and boom,

& the kaf and the nun

of the Kun f’ya kun

the ripples of time,

conscious spirit.

We, reverberating through

physical finite mystical hindsight

– I am in the opinion of my slave –

not all apertures are set to take

in the same amount of divine light.

Safa N. Plenty is an educator and mental health counselor. She holds a Masters of Social Work from Columbia University in Applied Generalist Practice and Programming and an undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies with a minor in Africana Studies. Her research interest include Sufism, Attachment to God, indigenous eschatology, particularly Native American and Somatic psychology. She is also interested in religious mysticism, mindfulness practice in Buddhism and the role of feminism and religion in cultivating a peacemaking capacity among young Muslim women. Safa is currently working to develop a faith based healthy relationships program for Mothers and daughters. She enjoys writing poetry, research, and contemplative practice in art and crafts in her free time.

Echoes of Mesopotamia by Molly

Echoes of Mesopotamia
small figures from ancient places
ancient times
and ancient faces
ancient words
and ancient wisdom
still flowing in my veins

Clay in my hands
clay in her hands
running on the rivers of time
spiraling in the mysteries of being
spinning in the eddies and ripples of eternity…

I have a strong emotional connection to ancient Paleolithic and Neolithic goddess sculptures. I do not find that I feel as personally connected to later goddess imagery, but very ancient figures call to something deep and powerful within me. I have a sculpture of the Goddess of Willendorf at a central point on my altar. Sometimes I hold her and wonder and muse about who carved the original. I almost feel a thread that reaches out and continues to connect us to that nearly lost past—all the culture and society and how very much we don’t know about early human history. There is such a solid power to these early figures and to me they speak of the numinous, non-personified, Great Goddess weaving her way throughout time and space. Continue reading “Echoes of Mesopotamia by Molly”

Poetic Stumbles by Xochitl Alvizo

Photo by http://www.chrispinkham.com/ — Photo by Chris Pinkham

They feel like incomplete thoughts. One day I finally realized the reason why I, for a very long time, was unable to connect with poetry or appreciate it. When I would read a poem I would feel as if the expression was incomplete; poetry felt abstract in a way that did not make sense to me. Even if I would initially have a positive response to a poem and would think, “Ah, that was poetic!” in the same instance I would also judge it to be pretentious, trying to communicate more than what the words could actually mean or rightly convey. And this was precisely the reason why I struggled to appreciate poetry in the first place, I had learned to value only that which communicates clearly, cogently, and ‘logically’. I had been well trained for academic writing, and got stuck there! Eventually, a class I took with Kwok Pui Lan helped me break out of such a narrow way of thinking and valuing, but it was not an easy task. Continue reading “Poetic Stumbles by Xochitl Alvizo”

Surviving and Thriving: For My Defender by Sara Frykenberg

Last year many of my actions, choices and emotions could have been characterized as a part of my ongoing efforts towards what I recognize as survival: I was often ‘trying to make it through,’ live ‘despite,’ exist ‘even though,’ grapple with violence or choose in such a way that I could continue to live in the midst of chaos.

Survival is an extremely important skill, practiced by many people for many different reasons. And before I continue here, I would like to say that in all of my struggles last year, I always had the basic necessities required to live my life. Many people do not; and for many, survival is an everyday practice that may or may not be achievable, requiring access to necessities that may or may not be accessible. No one tried to kill me last year. I had access to food. I did not lose my home or livelihood; though I felt these things threatened. I am privileged to live where and how I do, with many resources available to me. These resources helped me to make it though, where other people survive with far, far less. I choose to share my own feelings of survival because I want to decry the self-dehumanizing shame that tells me I am bad or wrong for feeling my own experience. I identify my survival in an attempt to also, thrive. Continue reading “Surviving and Thriving: For My Defender by Sara Frykenberg”

A Poem About Sister Love by Marcia Mount Shoop

A Poem: Sister Love

This post will
never be complete
it can only house the fragments,
the remains
of days at my sister’s hospital bed

the vortex of medical labels
“critically ill”
“brain aneurism”
the singular attention to
fragile body chemistry
sodium, potassium, blood sugar, magnesium

Continue reading “A Poem About Sister Love by Marcia Mount Shoop”

She Loves It All by Alla Renée Bozarth

when god was a girl she loved
to play dress up with hydrogen
and nitrogen, she wiggled her hips
and blew kisses from her voluptuous
lips and wiggled her fingers to toss the stars~
she juggled them and tied ribbons on them
when she wanted to create new dimensions,
to open all the directions she hurled them like a salad
that no one told her not to play with, so she giggled
and played until all the ingredients stuck on the ceiling of sky,
but then she’d coax them back into action and let them decide
where to go and how far and when or if to land, and

she would go far out, way, way out to play
with her dolls, the gaseous, luminous balls of delight,
hold them in her cool hands for a millennial minute
to turn them into planets and things of that sort,
with what we call substance, solid stuff Continue reading “She Loves It All by Alla Renée Bozarth”