INSIGHT

Poetry also becomes an avenue for sharing understanding, and in fact, wisdom. We ingest poetry on a deeper level than we do other things we see and hear. You have to think about a poem to understand it. And a reader/performer who grasps the meaning of a poem conveys it to others who hear with their hearts. This may be a difficult concept for a society that measures intelligence by reading speed. But a higher level of understanding is expressed by such tools as nuance, metaphor, clever diction, and surprise.  

This collection requires an additional openness beyond that of similar work. I want these poems to bring you into the presence of the living God. For this to happen God Himself must show up. I encourage you to ask God to reveal Himself to you. I do not believe it offends God for someone to sincerely pray, “God, if You are real, reveal Yourself to me. And if You do, I need you to help me surrender myself to You.” I suggest that you prayerfully read the scripture printed with each verse and make notes on what you sense God saying to you before and after each poem.

When I first envisioned writing this book, I told a friend I had already begun to think about a poem on John 1:1. He could not believe I would attempt to write a poem on that verse. “How could anything be worded better than the scripture itself?” But another friend told me, “It would be better to write a lesser poem on such a profound word than to write a much cleverer one on lesser thoughts.”

The crux of this collection is not my poetic sense or diction, but the marvelous person of Jesus and the age-old freshness of the Spirit illumining through His word.

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

http://theanchorofthesoul.blogspot.com/

http://writingprayerfully.blogspot.com/

Website

http://daveswatch.com/

YouTube

https://goo.gl/PyzU

Amazon Author Central page.

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/2022/03/understanding-poetry.html

How The West Was Won

 
    The West wasn’t won with musket and ball
By adventurer/explorer braving the wild,
    Or the high-hatted marshal quick on the draw,
But by a praying woman holding her child.
 
    Neither buckskin rider on a buffalo run,
Nor hard-bitten teamster driving his mules,
    Or the blue-coated soldier with pony and gun
Left us neighborhoods, libraries, churches and schools.

    It was our god-fearing mothers, faithful and blessed,
Supporting their husbands in work side by side
    Who enabled our nation to tame the wild west.
And laid the foundation for our future lives.

   And she did it all as a matter of course,
 Following our God and fulfilling her part.
    She needn’t replace with weapons of force
Her submissive spirit, or her praying heart.

This poem was published in the book Take Me To The Garden.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YSVLW24/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i10

Amazon Author Central page.

The Presentation of Poetry

I have been sharing some of my poems here. And last week I started posting an introduction to poetry from my book, I AM, Poetic Reflections through the Gospel of John to help some of you enjoy it more. This segment is on how to read poetry.

Reading poetry is something like storytelling, which was more highly valued in other generations. In our time the art of storytelling has been replaced by visual media. I love drama, and videos are not innately bad. But their pervasiveness in our lives, and the lack of other experience has lost for many the pleasure of hearing a story or reading a stirring poem. And like storytelling, the drama, tone of voice, eye contact and pregnant pauses make poetry happen. 

Some of you are preachers or teachers who will use these verses or snatches from them in sermons and lessons. Don’t simply read them cold. Read them over and over aloud until your very being takes on the force and nuance of the words. You want your hearers to squirm when you read a line like “He scratched His finger in the dirt of their pride.” They ought to shudder as Pilate asks, “What is truth, with a sneer in his heart.” You want them to tremble at “A voice from heaven thundering in their hearts.” And even when you are reading alone, poems call for dramatic expression to open your heart to their influence.

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

http://theanchorofthesoul.blogspot.com/

http://writingprayerfully.blogspot.com/

Website

http://daveswatch.com/

YouTube

https://goo.gl/PyzU

Amazon Author Central page.

 

THE CLOUD OF UNTHINKING

His ways at last are beyond our grasp, 

The breadth of His Being beyond all showing.

His truth so vast from our reach is past, 

Hiding Himself in the cloud of unknowing. 

But must He bind Himself from the minds 

Of those who would not seek His inkling?

His truth could they find with hearts so blind

Who hide from Him in the cloud of unthinking?

If our hearts are filled with selfish will 

Can we ever know His presence within,

Souls compelled by lust unfulfilled 

Until we die in unbelief and sin?

Yet the gospel's grace can be embraced 

To open the minds of the sons of men.

He died in the place of Adam's race

To redeem His own from the fate of sin.

This poem was published in the book Take Me To The Garden.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YSVLW24/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i10

Amazon Author Central page.

UNDERSTANDING POETRY

I have been posting some of my poetry in the past few weeks. And I think it might be helpful for many to be given some perspective on reading poetry. I wrote something about this in the introduction to my book, I AM, Poetic Reflections Through The Gospel of John. The poems in the book are not nearly as gripping as some others that I have written, but I think the introduction will be helpful. So, for the next few weeks I will post segments of this introduction.

Are you afraid to read or use poetry? You are not alone in these days. I hope I can introduce you to the force of poetry that will make you tremble with Jeremiah and cry out from fire in your bones. 

Presenting a book of poems at the end of an era where poetry has been so little known and loved requires special introduction. This relates to a fact that many of you may doubt. Is this dark antipoetic era over? I believe it is suffering its noisome death throws as I pen these words. Elementary school teachers were the Light Brigade that broke in on its artillery coming down upon its battlements with marvelous child-friendly poems by authors like Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky. And now even adults seem to be opening up, if slowly, to the power and pleasure of verse.  

I went to school in the 1950s and 60s when the joy of poetry was being expelled. I knew then that I was out of sync with the coming trend by finding an affinity toward something most of my friends thought strange. The first writing I ever published was a poem I wrote my sophomore year in college. I had not thought about trying to publish when I wrote it, but several friends urged me to send it to The Student, a national denominational magazine with a circulation in the tens if not hundreds of thousands.

But magazines like The Student were the last hold-outs in a society that had already banished Homer and Hiawatha from secondary education. I wrote a few poems over the years that I sent unsuccessfully to multiple editors. I wrote one in the early 1970's that I sent dutifully to editors every five or six years. After 20 years of rejection slips, I received a check for the poem. They paid me $12 on acceptance! That year three more of my poems were accepted for publication. I was amazed. 

I did use some of my poems in sermons and they were usually well received. But I have to admit that at least 90% of my poems over the years were written for my wife and family, simply because there was no outside market for them. Doors were cracking open for publishing poetry before it occurred to me that I should have been writing poems with God as my audience, whether anyone else would read them or not.  Still, poetry like a sermon cannot be written without concern for a human audience. And some of us need to help people know how to read, enjoy and benefit from poetry. 

http://watchinginprayer.blogspot.com/

http://thinkinginthespirit.blogspot.com/

http://theanchorofthesoul.blogspot.com/

http://writingprayerfully.blogspot.com/

Website

http://daveswatch.com/

YouTube

https://goo.gl/PyzU

Amazon Author Central page.

WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE HOT TUB

 When The Frost Is on The Hot Tub

When the frost is on the hot tub, and it’s freezin’ on the deck,
I step out in the morning an’ feel the shivers down my neck.
O it starts my feet to hoppin’ from the ice between my toes,
An’ I feel the wind astingin’ on my legs and ears and nose.
I lift the cover without stopin’ the chatterin’ of my teeth,
An’ I watch the steam arisin’ as it forms a silver wreath.
Now it’s hard to keep my balance cause there’s ice upon the step,
When the frost is on the hot tub, and it’s freezin’ on the deck.

I start the pool achurnin’ bubbllin’ out from every jet.
An’ I feel the hot tub callin’ from the warmth within its depths.
So I ease into the water that’s at first too hot to stand.
Then I sink below the surface as my longing now demands.
Oh I c’n feel the warmth asinkin’ into my achin’ bones,
As I lie there in the water and let out a happy moan.
But soon my time is over and I’m dreadin’ what comes next,
Cause the frost was on the hot tub, and it's freezin’ on the deck.

I can feel the chilling wind as I close the whole thing down.
It was summer in the hot tub but it's winter all around.

I pick my way with caution lest I be slippin’ on the ice.
The towel I left is frozen, and bare flip flops are hardly nice.
An’ my body’s still atremblin' as I step into the house.
I shake my limbs and rub them dry and call out to my spouse,
“The air outside was stinging cold, and I was soakin’ wet!
There was frost upon the hot tub, and it's freezin’ on the deck.”

This poem was published in the book Take Me To The Garden.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YSVLW24/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i10

Amazon Author Central page.