Not all poetry is spiritual: Discuss. Well, it depends what you mean by ‘spiritual,’ of course. A quick scroll through Holding Heaven’s poetry page might prove or disprove that statement depending on your viewpoint. What on earth does anthropomised porridge, dragons and Odes to Clapham Junction’s sanitary facilities have to do with matters of the soul? I’ll leave that to you to decide. Just be thankful that much of my output doesn’t make it on to this site.
That said, much of what you see here does touch on how I’ve found poetry helps me come to a place of stillness . During those early summer mornings spent outside writing the haiku which were my contribution to the book mentioned in my last post: Psalms of Lament: Haikus of Hope, for instance. A cross between prayer, meditation and journaling.
Have you ever tried writing a haiku? The classic 5-7-5 syllable count for each line works as a frame within which to muse and see what emerges. Since the three of us finished the book, I’ve found myself occasionally using the haiku form as a kind of journal . Not with the aim of ‘producing ‘ a perfect poem, not even for public consumption. (O.K yes, Jane, what exactly are you doing spilling your poetic guts here then?) Here’s a random sequence written during Holy Week:
Start of Holy Week
Palms fluttering in the wind
Triumphant journey
Easy to be trite
Easy to write in cliches
Tale told so often
…and so on. There’s more only I’m losing patience with WordPress’s block editor.
The rest consisted of random witterings about the relevance of the form to serious thought or whether a meditation on the Passion of Our Lord was better expressed in a ballad.
Ballad, haiku or sonnet, they’re all means of tapping into prayer, meditation, deep thought (answer ‘42!’) or whatever floats your particular spiritual boat. Have a go. I’d love it if readers could share anything they’ve written themselves.
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