What is a Poem?
From the Sacred podcast episode Preparing To Die, Then Learning to Live Again with Poet Christian Wiman. Host Elizabeth Oldfield asks, "What is a poem?"
You can have a philosophical statement that's articulated perfectly like Wordsworth or Yeats or Elliot or Shakespeare, but you can have a piece of music that releases you and you don't really understand it but it has really done something for you. I think of poetry and music as being much closer arts than say, poetry and fiction. I like Emily Dickinson's definition: If it was "taking the top of my head off", then I know it's a poem... a visceral sense you've come across something uncanny...
That's faith that would not have survived in me for twenty years if it were not for these experiences. There was some other dimension entering the language, and I knew it hadn't come from me.
... (Host Elizabeth responds) A sense of contact. The thinning of some veil.
... (Christian continues) I don't think it's possible for a poet to not have faith... the act of writing's an act of faith... having faith in some life beyond the life we have here... we don't see the reality if we don't see the radiance.
From An Axe in the Frozen Sea, Conversations with Poets about What Matters Most by Ben Palpant. Poetry has to be hospitable.
Stanza comes from Italian for “little room” - each stanza plays host to the reader, welcoming us into not merely an idea or statement but a place where we can be changed. Are you decorating and furnishing then as an act of hospitality? An invitation to enter to enter the poet’s world, and to be together in the moment. Form is essential. You’re not very hospitable when you just cast a bunch of syllables in a chaotic fashion. - Angela O’ Donnell
Earn trust by being clear - then they are willing to follow you into the mystery - Tania Runyan
From Sandra McCracken’s Steadfast Live Trailer:
In the last few years, there’s been such a stirring and a change in my process as a songwriter… less of my own feelings and more about experiencing God’s presence and wanting to make space for other people to feel God’s presence.
Also, another example of poetry: Retirement Plan, an animated short by Domnhall Gleeson