By Peggy Rosenthal
In response to my post a few weeks ago on a shared theme I’d noticed among some Image poets, K. Rogers wrote this thoughtful critique: “Finding common ground is not a bad goal, but surely not the only objective for poets! Dip your pen into the ink well only so far and where are the deeper truths? I fear you suggest poets only sketch lightly with pencils and forego the etchings and woodcuts of deeper faith doctrines in their work. Is there no allowance for the individual calling of a poet to delve into deeper issues of faith and doctrine?”
I’ve been pondering K. Rogers’ comments and her/his richly evocative imagery. What a marvelous metaphor for the poet’s calling: to create “etching and woodcuts” that delve into deep issues of faith.
But “of faith and doctrine”? I’ve found myself balking at that conjunction. My instinct is to draw a line (etch a line?) between “faith” and “doctrine” where poetry is concerned. I’m inclined to think that doctrine is not a good starting point for poetry—or for any of the arts.
Starting to create a work of art from the standpoint of doctrine can lead too easily to something that is dogma instead of art. But good art, I’d argue, is never propagandistic or dogmatic. Rather, like the God whose creativity is never coercive but instead invitational, truly creative art opens our minds and hearts to wonder. True art is exploratory, engaging us to join in its ever-surprising journey.
And thinking about the surprise awaiting us in all good art, I recall poet Mark Jarman being interviewed in Image #33 (Winter, 2001) about his collection Unholy Sonnets: “I knew I was writing religious poetry, devotional poetry, but I didn’t want to exclude readers who might not believe as I did, and I didn’t want to rely on the traditional language of religious belief. My aim, which is clear to me now though I can’t say it was then, was to surprise a reader in the midst of a religious poem.”
Yet now that I think about it (again), Jarman’s goal of “surprising” the reader isn’t at all inconsistent with K. Rogers’ desire that poetry “delve into deeper issues of faith and doctrine.”
In fact, I must confess that when I come to Rogers’ comment afresh from Jarman’s, I’m quite comfortable with “doctrine” as an extension of faith. And I think of favorite poems that do delve into doctrine: Henry Vaughan’s “The Dwelling Place,” with its meditation on God’s indwelling in our souls; R.S. Thomas’ envisioning of the Incarnation in “The Coming”; Kathleen Norris imaging her “Ascension” in terms of childbirth.
Yet, spiraling my mind back again through Rogers’ comment in light of these poems, I wonder if they delve not so much into doctrine as into an experience of our Christian faith narrative. Each of these poems throws its imagination into a Scriptural moment. Each calls on the poetic imagination to draw us inside of the Scriptural moment in a fresh way.
We’d probably define doctrine as an articulation of a “truth” of faith. But the Catholic poet Seamus Heaney writes of a sort of “truth” that is particular to poetry. As quoted in America’s review (September 14-21, 2009 issue) of a new book of interviews with Heaney called Stepping Stones, Heaney says that poetry has taught him “That there’s such a thing as truth and that it can be told / ...that poetry itself has virtue...possessing inherent strength by reason of sheer made-upness....”
The review also quotes from Heaney’s Nobel Prize speech, “in which he called the poet’s vocation ‘a journey into the wideness of language, a journey where each point of arrival—whether in one’s poetry or one’s life—turned out to be a stepping stone rather than a destination.’”
Heaney’s image here for poetry —of a journey into wideness—would seem, I’d think, to find “doctrine” too constricting, though this image could easily be consistent with what is popularly called the “journey” of faith. It’s indeed common (even clichéd) to speak of a “faith journey.” But a “doctrine journey”?
So I’ve circled back, I guess, to my original desire to separate faith and doctrine where poetry is concerned. But I’m willing to keep circling through this open question. My thanks to K. Rogers for stimulating these decidedly inconclusive musings.
And I expect that the question of faith and doctrine in relation to art is much discussed in Seattle Pacific’s MFA Creative Writing program. I’d welcome any comments on the subject from program participants...and of course from anyone else.
The language you're employing here is theologically rich and evocative. On this blog, some have pondered the relationship between prayer or worship and the craft of our writing or art. I'll take that ball and run with it, however crudely and poorly executed on my part.
Liturgical prayer (which is surely an art) was long understood as "theologia prima' (first theology), while the definining and explication of doctrine was considered "theologia secunda." Prosper of Aquitaine put it succintly: "Ut legem credendi statuat lex supplicandi." (The rule of prayer establishes the rule of belief.)
The "remembrance" aspect of the liturgy, understood variously by different Christian traditions, can be seen as a re-membering, a putting on of our members, our flesh, over the marrow of shared belief discovered in shared worship. Our bodies are the loci in which we "live into" this theology made present in liturgy. And worship takes place in a particular place, with real, tangible bodies, candles, books, bread and wine. In a small, faintly similar way, the artist or writer of faith attempts that, too.
And yes, that doctrine, that way of seeing that arises from our prayer, our liturgy (and perhaps by analogy, our craft) keeps us from circling back to ourselves. I'm sure you're alluding here, Allison, to Augustine's description of sin as "incurvatus in se (ipsum)", (a bending back upon itself). It's the journey, the striving toward that which we believe though barely see or comprehend, that may at last save our art and our souls from fatal narcissism. I certainly hope so.