A Rainy Morning, by Ted Kooser

National Poetry Month comes to a close today, so here's a poem from former Poet Laureate (2004-2006) and longtime Nebraska resident Ted Kooser. Click through to browse the many titles of his poetry we have in stock. 

A Rainy Morning

A young woman in a wheelchair,
wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain,
is pushing herself through the morning.
You have seen how pianists
sometimes bend forward to strike the keys,
then lift their hands, draw back to rest,
then lean again to strike just as the chord fades.
Such is the way this woman
strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers,
letting them float, then bends again to strike
just as the chair slows, as if into a silence.
So expertly she plays the chords
of this difficult music she has mastered,
her wet face beautiful in its concentration,
while the wind turns the pages of rain.

from Delights & Shadows © Copper Canyon Press, 2004

Idiot Psalms, Scott Cairns

Yes, it's National Poetry Month, so you might see a little more verse than usual here. Let's kick things off with a favorite poet (and friend) of ours, Scott Cairns.

Idiot Psalms: Poems
by Scott Cairns; 96 pp. paper $17.00

Fourteen “Idiot Psalms” ground this collection of poems by one of our favorite poets. This meaty work is the newest within a reputable oeuvre, including other works of poetry, essays, and memoir. 

Acclaimed poet B.H. Fairchild says of Cairns: “Among American poets of religious belief at the present time, none is more skillful, authentic, or convincing than Scott Cairns. Far from the old stereotype of such poets as naive and otherworldly, Cairns in every poem reveals his attachment to ‘the ten thousand things’ and to their participation in the mysteries of ultimate Being. He is steadily making himself and his work indispensable to the richness and breadth of contemporary poetry, an ascent confirmed both beautifully and movingly in Idiot Psalms.” Cairns’ poems convey in full a trembling awe in the face of what he calls the sacramental fullness of words, their capacity to bring us to the edge of the divine Abyss, which is yet endless Love. From the book:

O God Belovéd if obliquely so, dimly apprehended in the midst of this, the fraught obscuring fog of my insufficiently capacious ken, Ostensible Lover of our kind—while apparently aloof—allow that I might glimpse once more Your shadow in the land, avail for me, a second time, the sense of dire Presence in the pulsing hollow near the heart. Once more, O Lord, from Your Enormity incline your Face to shine upon Your servant, shy of immolation, if You will.

Books for Lent: The Final Part

[In a recent post, we mentioned some lists for Lenten reading. Read on for the last in our series.]

A list that recognizes ANY good reading as good Lenten practice.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
by Nicholas Carr
Reveals "what is at stake in the daily habits of our wired lives: the re-constitution of our minds" (Matthew Crawford). 

Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
(email or call for availability) 
by Kathleen Norris
Norris restores this forgotten but important concept to the modern world's vernacular. 

A Prayer Journal
by Flannery O'Connor; edited by W.A. Sessions
A window into the spiritual formation of O'Connor as she struggles to work diligently, extend, charity, and write with integrity. 

Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath (email or call for availability) 
Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife
Kristin Lavransdatter: The Cross
by Sigrid Undset; translated by Tiina Nunnally
A masterpiece of historical fiction set in medieval Norway, replete with some of the most unforgettable and full-blooded characters in literature. We (strongly) recommend reading the award-winning translation of Tiina Nunnally above all others. (Also available in a one-volume penguin edition. Email or call for availability.)

The Story of Jumping Mouse
by John Steptoe
Based on a Native American legend, Jumping Mouse is the Ladder of Divine Ascent for kids (which is just to say it's for everyone). Caldecott award winner.

The World of Silence (email or call for availability) 
by Max Picard
Picard’s great prose poem, like the silence it depicts, “does not fit into the world of profit and utility; it simply is. It seems to have no other purpose; it cannot be exploited.”

The End of Suffering (email or call for availability) 
by Scott Cairns
A surgically honest yet gentle portrayal of suffering's end (purpose, not cessation) and how the healing of our wounded cosmos begins with the repair of the person. 

The Idiot Psalms 
by Scott Cairns
In every poem, Cairns reveals his attachment to "the ten thousand things" and to their participation in the mysteries of ultimate Being. 

The Diary of a Country Priest
by Georges Bernanos
A deceptively anecdotal novel that skillfully analyzes the struggles, graces, fears and dreams of a young priest working out his vocation. 

The Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene
What shines through this dusty landscape and its dusty souls is not theology, per se, but theoria, a glimpse beyond the scrim of this world that somehow survives all darkness. 

Father Arseny, 1893-1973: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father: Being the Narratives Compiled by the Servant of God Alexander Concerning His Spiritual Father
translated by Vera Bouteneff
A narrative comprised of encounters with Father Arseny, a former art historian and priest imprisoned in the Gulag. An intimate testimony of what it means to "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). 

An Apology for Poetry

An Apology for Poetry by Sir Philip Sidney

133 pp. paper $16.99

Lovers of poetry today will hear the complaint Sir Philip Sidney made about the status of poetry in 1595 and recognize something that could have been written yesterday. He called poetry a craft “which, from almost the highest estimation of learning, is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children.” Much like our era, the late sixteenth century tended to consider poetry to be narrow and frivolous. In our day, science and technology are considered to be the most worthwhile disciplines; in Sidney’s day, it was history and philosophy. Sidney’s response to his contemporaries’ disdain for poetry unfolds like a legal defense of the art against allegations of deception and dissolution. He argues that, if done well, poetry does have pragmatic ends. Following the Platonic tradition, he argues that poetry can inspire readers to lead virtuous lives in the real world. He is particularly concerned to distinguish mytho-poetic literature like the works of Homer and Dante, which captured an over-arching vision of the world and the cosmos, from those of mere “poet-apes” who trade in trivialities and word-play. Only the former can inspire readers to live truly great lives.

To Begin Again

And so we set forth, once again, to bring you our thoughts on books, news of upcoming events, and the occasional rambling concerning culture or the liturgical calendar.

Thank you for following us here, and for bearing with us as we navigate the inevitable technical issues that face all of us who do business on the world wide web.

Yesterday was the birthday of poet Jane Hirshfield (many thanks to The Writer's Almanac for keeping us abreast of such important events). Central to Hirshfield's poetry is "a kind of holy delight" (Lisa Russ Spaar) and mindfulness that encompasses "a profound empathy for the suffering of all living beings" (Czeslaw Milosz). Probably the best summary we've read of her work is offered by fellow poet Rosanna Warren: 

Hirshfield has elaborated a sensuously philosophical art that imposes a pause in our fast-forward habits of mind. Her poems appear simple, and are not. Her language, in its cleanliness and transparency, poses riddles of a quietly metaphysical nature…Clause by clause, image by image, in language at once mysterious and commonplace, Hirshfield's poems clear a space for reflection and change. They invite ethical awareness, and establish a delicate balance. (from Poets.org) 

All of that to introduce this one poem particularly suited to these late winter days when spring is close but seems the farthest off (as well as a subtle homage to the handwritten word, also known as "the letter").

Hope and Love

All winter

the blue heron

slept among the horses.

I do not know

the custom of herons,

do not know

if the solitary habit

is their way,

or if he listened for

some missing one—

not knowing even 

that was what he did—

in the blowing

sounds in the dark.

I know that hope is the hardest

love we carry.

He slept with his long neck

folded, like a letter

put away.

Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart