Tag: poetry

Poetry as Necessity

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Identity, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment
Eileen Myles
Enter a caption

From a recent New York Times Magazine interview with Eileen Myles:

NY Times Magazine: Many people would be surprised to hear that according to you, poetry is alive and well in America. Our national political conversation has recently seen some rather unpoetic lurches to the right. How do you make sense of that?

Myles: Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy. It’s like the un-Trump: The poet is the charismatic loser. You’re the fool in Shakespeare; you’re the loose cannon. As things get worse, poetry gets better, because it becomes more necessary.

Annunciation/ Magnificat/ Epiphany

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Sunflowers.jpgMeg Arlyn was raised Evangelical, educated Quaker, and spends her Sundays with the Mennonites. She lives in Oakland.

Annunciation

I am crossing San Pablo
Avenue at twilight and suddenly
the sky is riven with angels
one of whom
falls at my feet.

Look out!
says the man
on the bike.
You’re so beautiful,
that angel just fell from the sky Continue reading “Annunciation/ Magnificat/ Epiphany” →

i thank You God for most this amazing

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
Photo Credit: Meg Marshall
Photo Credit: Meg Marshall

By e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

24

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

amberBy Amber Cullen a member of Mission Year Team Member in Philadelphia.

I’m drivin’ down the highway at 65mph
And I’m lookin’ out on the plains, the beautiful Ohio plains
With trees standing solitary in the middle of the vastness
And the sky so blue like the most satisfying drink of water
And the tires are pounding the pavement and my hair is out and
All at once I’m laughing, tears flying, exhilarated to be—just be.
Not like the world is any less painful or that things are any less messed up
Or like somehow I’ve convinced myself that these plains are the escape from it all
Because it all is still here (right here) and everything is still hard
But for now Ima sit with the rhythm of the plains and just be. Continue reading “24” →

A Psalm for Probating an Estate

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as ResistanceLeave a comment

roseRose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is a senior associate editor at Sojourners magazine.

Note: Our outgoing interns led worship this week at Sojourners. They invited us to write a psalm to share. I had just returned from D.C. Probate Court where I filed the final papers for my friend and co-worker Elizabeth Palmberg’s estate. Zab died on June 23, 2014. This is the psalm that came out.

for Zab Palmberg

O God, Thou art Creator and Destroyer.
You exhale and we are made to live;

You inhale and we are returned to You.
You plant us like a seed
Continue reading “A Psalm for Probating an Estate” →