Epigraph

"[P]oetry makes nothing happen: it survives, / [...] a way of happening, a mouth." -W. H. Auden

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Phil Metres: Advent Poems

Phil Metres has posted a video of a reading of his wonderful series of Advent poems, interspersed with music. Phil writes that "the psalms and readings and prayers I heard as a child in Mass were among my first experiences of poetry—a language that draws us into its song, that claims us, even when we don’t understand all its meanings. The longer I write, the more I admire the durable language of Scripture. Despite its translations from distant languages, its vivid evocation of the sacred flows in and between the lines. I am still awed when I read the poetry of Isaiah:

The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, 
That I might know how to speak to the weary 
A word that will rouse them. 
Morning after morning 
He opens my ear that I may hear…"

Watch the video here:
http://behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2010/12/happy-advent-everyone-poems-music-in.html

2 comments:

  1. Luke, thanks for the shout-out. It's strange for me to see these private words suddenly circulate. I wrote them for myself, as a discipline almost, and then forgot about them for a year and a half.

    One of the sweet responses was from a priest who said he would pray through the poems this Advent.

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  2. You're welcome, Phil. Thank you for sharing your wonderful poems. Glad to hear that they've met with many "sweet responses"!

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