Poetry Can Pull You Into the New Year
Thinking about Word Made Fresh
This Weekend Edition of Ecstatic features Conor Sweetman
Every year, the media organization I work for holds its annual Book Awards as things gear down for Christmas, then rev back up with a print version in January. Though I’ve helped with some preliminary judging in past years for the Arts & Culture category, this year I didn’t—which caused me to be all the more delighted when I saw that Abram Van Engen’s book, Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church had been selected as the winner.
As luck would have it, I’d written an early version of a review months before it was selected, and so I’d like to share some thoughts on how a poetic mindset can define this new year as it dawns for each of us.
In my experience as the editor of a Christian literary journal, I often hear covert stories of someone smuggling poetry into church life, sneaking it into a Bible study discussion, or of a pastor using it as a launching point for a wider biblical illustration on a Sunday morning, trying to let the metaphor, image, and flavor of the words seep into the sermon. These stories seem like they are told sheepishly, as if the poetry readers and pastors are embarrassed to care so much about this form of art that can often feel neglected.
I have good news for those who care even a little bit about poetry: you’re not alone. The tendency towards wanting to get back in touch with the “creative side of ourselves” seems to be significantly on the rise in our current age. We’re worn out by machine learning but also strangely spurred on by the effect that metamodernism has on our desire for sincerity.
It’s a joy for me to receive poetry submissions from people in their mid-to-late careers, who have heard an internal call toward the arts beckoning from the inside. They find their life expanding, even within their 9-to-5, filling their spare minutes with literature and the arts, relishing in the light of human creativity lovingly bestowed on us by our Creator, who gives warmth to what can so easily become cold and ashen.
The unfeeling methods of interpreting our life and work, though they may be scientifically and judicially valuable, can cause us to become out of touch with the center of our being, as those made in the image of God and given a divine mandate to name the world around us and bring forth new life through our generative capacities. For many today, there seems to be a growing desire to find that creative kernel at the core of themselves once again, both through paying attention to the monotony of everyday practicalities with new eyes, as well as in the transcendence of spiritual practices.
As Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things. . .” and this freshness brings the expectation of light dawning on the horizon, even when things seem bleak. Even as the “generations have trod, have trod, have trod” along roads that are worn thin from use and abuse, there is still a stubborn expectation of God’s grandeur, “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods.”
The welcome of that freshness lays at the heart of Abram Van Engen’s book, Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church. With a professorial impulse and curator’s eye, Van Engen opens up the Scriptures to reveal the surreptitious way the artistic impulse and poetic craft colors much more of the Bible than our industry-trained eyes care to see. With an impulse that reminded me of Tom Holland’s Dominion, which exposes how the Western mind swims in the waters of early Christian influence, Van Engen shares a revelatory persuasion, locating our thirst for the waters of poetry that flow through much of the Bible—whether through the implicit structure of the Psalms, or the metaphoric craftsmanship of Jesus’ parables.
The poetry at the bedrock of the Bible—“cover[ing] one-third of the entire Old Testament”—has become so ubiquitous that we barely notice it. Van Engen takes the necessary first step of unveiling how we are the products of God’s poiema, bearing the creative faculties that he has uniquely endowed to humans, setting us apart for his praise in a way that is quite different from the lifeless rocks that cry out, and the insentient trees that clap their hands. Through Van Engen’s careful and passionate explanation, it becomes apparent that we are breathing the oxygen of poetry—it is part of what makes us human. If you look closely at the heart of the renewing, life-giving work of Christ in his people, you’ll find poetry pouring forth.
Despite the texture and layers that are essential to the Christian faith, it is still true that poetry baffles many and can be boring for most. In Word Made Fresh, Van Engen turns in a book framed like an essay assigned in a university English class, but he imbues it with a deep sense of affection and attention, offered up as both a love letter and an invitation. He equips the average reader with the tools of analysis and makes no promises that any specific poem will have a life-changing effect. Through his professorial method, he demonstrates that the laborious and layered complexity of true craft is the context where the seismic reality of poetry is found.
Though many of us can think of at least one experience where a line of poetry has pierced through our everyday life with something either lovely or devastating, the reality is that the experience of poetry is most often mundane, much like the spiritual practices of study, fasting, and prayer.
And yet, as Van Engen’s introduction and arguments give way to a peppering of actual examples of his most beloved poems, all of a sudden, we can feel the 100-pound weight of glory cracking through the floorboards of our hesitation. Poetry burrows right down into the foundation of the human spirit, finding its way to where our emotional realities spur us, burden us, and stimulate us. The unique ability of humans to observe our feelings gives us a capacity that no other animals possess, bound as they are to pure instinct and self-preservation. By introducing us to the undeniably moving quality of poetry and its ability to name reality, tell the truth, and weep and rejoice in community, Van Engen paves a highway into the depths of our human-ness.
The hospitality of poetry requires you to enter each poem’s home with good manners and an awareness of the context you’re meeting in. By tracing the line along the rich era of Christian verse that has allowed generations to engage, reflect, and imagine the world in communion with one another, Van Engen shows that poetry is inherently communal, possessing the unique power to connect dissenting hearts. The stanza, the central unit of poetry, is a small room for a thought to reside in. The act of poetry is an invitation to host another in that tiny room, having dinner and a conversation with the soul of the idea sitting on the couch, ready to have a frank conversation.
In this time where many speak of deconstruction, feeling alienated and unknown by the church, I had a nagging question in the back of my mind while mulling over this book’s argument for the intimacy of a poem: “What is poetry in the age of the megachurch?”
We seem to be entering a cultural shift that values the smaller and more intimate rather than the large and comprehensive. As many come to the point where they realize they crave to be known and seen on a small scale—where one can give and receive love, time, and commitment within a community that recognizes the inherent value of the individual—it would seem that the poetic rather than the productive reality of our human nature is surfacing. In its deeply relational nature, poetry looks out from the window of a small living room with candles on and a warm dinner in the oven, ushering us in to be with one another, soul-to-soul.
Van Engen asks what the future of poetry in the Church could be—“After all, how can he sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” What does a new song sound like in the landscape of the attention economy? We are living in a moment where spiritual and aesthetic interest is being mined, advertised, and then discarded. Maybe poetry can offer distinct dignity to a societally deformed mind that is grasping toward restoration, reinvigoration, and re-integration with itself and its Maker.
Though most poetry that we encounter will do nothing, the one poem that will do something could change everything. Lowering the expectations of poetry can allow it to become an intriguing backdrop to our lives, providing a subconscious portal to a depth that would otherwise remain unprobed. Poetry pricks the heart and shows us how to be attentive to the spiritual, internal, and social dynamics at play in our lives, permeating them with meaning and revealing a God of absolute intentionality.
There is a way to praise God by merely existing—as the planets, mountains, and rabbits do in their simple glory. Then there is a way to praise God through our unique human faculties of imagination and creativity. With poetry’s way of bringing these faculties to life, we have the opportunity to channel these gifts in a way that glorifies God’s grandeur. As Jesus says, the rocks will do it for us if we don't take up our mantle.
Conor Sweetman
Editor & Founder
Conor is the founder of Ekstasis & Director of Innovation at Christianity Today. What did you think of this essay? Share your thoughts with a comment!
Loved this 🥲 real talk, I get afraid of becoming too sentimental or precious with my faith, and try to express myself with language that is as unadorned as possible when it comes to things like devotion, spirituality, or belief—but this post makes me think that my impulse is a form of pride, and that we have an obligation to cultivate beauty as an act of worship. Thank you for this post 🌿
I like this thought, lowering our expectations of poetry and allowing it to be a backdrop and portal: "Though most poetry that we encounter will do nothing, the one poem that will do something could change everything. Lowering the expectations of poetry can allow it to become an intriguing backdrop to our lives, providing a subconscious portal to a depth that would otherwise remain unprobed."