Finding Solace (Again) In Poetry
In the most despondent periods of my life, a single consistent balm has helped healed my emotional wounds. Poetry.
In the fallout from the presidential election, in which the current President-elect appears bent on appointing the least qualified, least experienced and most ill-suited people to major cabinet positions (have you counted the number of accused sexual predators among them?), I’ve turned increasingly to poems to help me make sense of what seems senseless.
Historian Diana Butler Bass observes in her blog “The Cottage” that the election results for many signify more than “a disappointment.” The feeling I and many are experiencing is betrayal. Betrayal by our fellow citizens who chose fear and self-interest over competence and compassion. Betrayal by a system that rewards candidates who lie spectacularly. And dare I say we’ve even questioned, where is God in all this?
We will need to give ourselves time to grieve, just as the Psalmists of Biblical times needed to lament in periods of exile and oppression when God seemed distant.
I usually cope with difficult times by writing through them. Lately, though, I’ve had trouble sleeping, let alone finding words to express the emotions I experience. I am grateful to the poets who are able to bring words to these feelings, and to friends who have shared poems with me that capture this moment in history.
I offer here some of these poems in the hope that they will bring you a measure of solace.
Ann Porter was a National Book Award finalist who died in 2011 whose poems have been compared to gospel parables and plainsong. Porter wrote this poem, addressed to God, years before Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator. Still, Porter’s words distill the mystifying abandonment and spiritual tension many of us feel at this moment. It is a poem that my spiritual director sent to me.
For David
(for David Shapiro)
Here open at our feet
There lies a bottomless
abyss of evil
A wound so deep
that at the sight of it
The spirit
Freezes within us
For though it was not You
But we ourselves
Who dug this dreadful grave
You did not stop us
Why
have you permitted it
This is a gulf so wide
There’s no way around it
A swamp so venomous
That no one can wade through it
There’s no bridge over it
How
Can we reach
Our country
Unless You lift us up
Onto Your shoulders
And carry us across
O Lord our Shepherd
James Crews is a poet whose books How to Love the World, The Path to Kindness, and his most recent offering, Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Courage and Self-Compassion call us toward a calmer, kinder nation. The poems he has put on Instagram this past week describe the anxiety so many of us are experiencing. For me, James’ poems are like moments when the sun’s rays break through thick clouds on a gray November day.
His poem “Awake in a Strange Room” captures how many of us felt the morning after the election:
“Awake In A Strange Room”
We have awoken in a very strange room
nearly airless, and so tight the walls
seem to be closing in. We have fallen
to our knees, and though the new day says
to rise, we let the light climb these walls
for now. We are floored, having poured
all of ourselves into hope’s cracked cup.
Still, we must drink. Still, each ragged
breath drawn inward feeds this body
starved for more, deserving of love from
a country that doesn’t show it. We must
follow the walls to find our way out,
and seek the love of those who can still
give it freely. These are our people.
In his poem, “Look for the Helpers,” James offers us a way out of our anxiousness, with a nod to a famous quote of Mr. Rogers:
“Look for the Helpers”
Today I will look for the helpers —
The woman pouring sunflower seeds
from an orange bag into the feeder,
and a chickadee, having eaten its fill,
lifting off so another can feed there.
Someone holding open the fogged-over
door of the coffee shop for a stranger,
who smiles and says thank you in spite
of the news. I will watch workers dressed
in neon vests with shovels and buckets,
filling potholes across the city, the asphalt
steaming as they spread it over the street,
then tamp it down, repairing what they can.
One of my other favorite poets is my dear friend Lisa Breger, who leads a monthly Poetry & Spirituality online gathering, sponsored by St. Mary Monastery of Rock Island, IL. In this lovely poem, which is in the current issue of “Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry,” Lisa evokes why poetry matters:
“I Need A Poem”
to wrap its arms around my tired shoulders and pull me close,
a poem that knows I’ve been up all night coughing, the medicine
burning, and on my many trips in the dark to the bathroom
knows I tracked the flight status of my spouse’s plane over Saudi Arabia
and let the dog out again under piercing stars.
A poem that interrupts incoming text messages
with the pronouncement I’m without answers
here alone, the Kleenex box by my side
and a work schedule ticking
as anxiously as the Sunday 60 Minutes clock.
I need a poem like a deep breath, a poem
that makes a good stew from roots and bones,
one the dog didn’t bury behind the shed
beneath leaves and stones, one that suggests itself
upward like spring shoots
but less fleeting by which I mean the trellis
by the dogwood that holds pruned branches of the rosebush up.
A poem that not only brings soup
but sits for a spell, butters warm bread
and feeds us as sun lowers itself brilliantly beyond the horizon
What is helping you breathe in these tender days? Who are the helpers in your life, as James Crews’ poem asks? What are the poems that offer you comfort, bring you healing?
(You can read more of James Crews’ poems on Instagram at james.crews.poet)
(To learn more about Lisa Breger’s Poetry and Spirituality group, please visit Spirituality and Poetry — Sisters of St. Benedict (smmsisters.org)
