Earlier this week, I had a chance to talk with Andrew Jones of TallSkinnyKiwi.com in preparation for GodblogCon and BlogWorld in Las Vegas next month. I’m proud to say that TheHighCalling.org is one of the event sponsors this year!
Andrew has been blogging since the mid 1990s, back when other folks were still trying to get on board with email. He’s also a key player in the best parts of the emergent movement–which is to say he understands the movement’s roots in the science of emergence, rather than in goatees, candles, and neo-denominationalism. That said, I wouldn’t really consider myself emergent. I’m just a guy following Jesus, nurturing a marriage, raising my kids, doing a job, and playing around with technology and poetry and stuff.
(And I’m not even sure what “neo-denominationalism” is. I just made that up for fun.)
Definitely listen to the audio if you get a chance. You can download it to your ipod, stream it online, or whatever.
Remember: It’s not too late to register for GodblogCon! Let me know in the comments if you’ll be there.
That’s the joke in my house anyway. Other guys grab a beer, sit on the couch, flip on the TV and respond to every question with grunts:
“Uhhnnnhhh Uhhnnnhhh.”
I grab a beer, sit on the couch, flip open a book of poetry and respond with grunts:
“Uhhnnnhhh Uhhnnnhhh.”
The stack of books on my nightstand is getting rather large, but I got my friend John Poch’s new book the other day. It won a big national prize. So of course, I dropped everything to read it–and grunt at my family. (The truth is I read at night in a cave of covers with a book light while my wife sleeps. Like a kid in middle school or something.)
John’s book Two Men Fighting with a Knife is my kind of poetry. (Here’s the book direct from the publisher.) Like all books of poetry, I only marked half of the poems on the first read. Some I marked “FUN!” Others “sad…” One “wow.” And lots of underlined phrases like this one about the speaker’s father:
A god some nights, he carried me up our stairs,
my feet bumping the wallpapered halls, my prayers
let slide for murmurs. He laid the angel’s shields
over me and let them glisten as I slept.
He woke me for chores, for school. Later, he left.
It kind of chokes me up to read it, you know? That’s from “The Angel on the Lamp.” There’s also an astounding sonnet crown dedicated to his surgeon. My favorite poem in the book, though, is a fun sonnet about swatting mosquitoes while on vacation in Mexico (among other things).
Lots of sonnets in the book. John specializes in structured verse, particular forms with rigid rules of rhyme and meter and argument. You can see hints of that in the excerpt above “stairs/prayers,” “slept/left.”
I know the book is good because as soon as I finished I wrote a poem. Good poetry has that effect on me. It’s beautiful and finely crafted, but also inspiring and empowering. In short, John Poch is a master of sprezzatura. So here’s the poem I wrote (which you can hear me read in a new podcast episode):
Shutting Down for John Poch
I hear a cricket in my room, chirping
in time to the flashing cable modem light.
My ears fight the sound, the constant insect flirting
with my mind to take flight together tonight.
Not quite in my room, though, I think it’s outside
our window back on the porch–behind the grill
or underneath or even, God forbid, inside
on the cold, dirty rack where meat and rust still
decay. Like the day in my mind disintegrates
into static from scratching legs or electronic
squeaks from data packages arriving too late.
The monitor’s glow motivates me with chronic
cricket cries to mouse clicks. Shut down. Window’s
symphonic sigh brings silence I suppose.
That’s what Mike Dellosso’s doing these days. His new book The Hunted is about to come out from Realms, but you can already read the first chapter online at his site. In fact, Mike is so on top of the social media thing that he deserves a bulleted list of items to just to set everyone straight.
A few weeks ago, Mike and I had a great conversation about writing, writing suspense, writing Christian suspense, and of course dealing with cancer. He’s a great guy. I really hope you’ll give this one a listen. It’s a lot more fun than the, um, rather self indulgent Whitman recitation I did earlier.
And I think the sound editing is better, but I’m still new at this.
If you don’t have time to sit at your computer and listen to this whole 20 minute interview (carefully edited, so all of the boring parts are GONE GONE GONE), no problem. You can download it itunes easily on my new blogomatic podcast page.
A few weeks ago I posted one of those whiny, doubtful things. I just wanted to say, “God cut through the crap already.” Shortly after that, he gave me a poem that seems to have been a response to that post. There are two versions of the poem, and I’ll post the short one first.
As usual, you can click on the evoca recording to hear me read it. (I’m having more and more fun with these audio productions in audacity…) If you are really a glutton for punishment, you can subscribe to my podcast! (It’s really just me at my kitchen table late at night.)
Looking for Intimacy
I want your R-rated prayers.
You think I can’t handle it?
Polite words leave me cold—
Congested and snot-filled.
I won’t use tissue. I’ll snort
You down, roll you into a ball
Of yellow phlegm with my tongue,
Hock up a church and spit it out.
Wasn’t that a happy little response from God? Happy Friday, everyone!
You see, Robert Hruzek is hosting a group writing project where people write about a mash-up of 18 fun topics. I added bugs and Bibles to his list just for good measure and polished up a poem for his group. He says it’s the first ever poetry entry. Yea, me!
First, the poem itself. You can hear me read it on the Evoca recording, but you’ll have to skip ahead to 1:20 remaining because I get long winded in my intro. (Be sure to check out my sweet musical intro/outro. Royalty free audio is fun!)
Welcoming Summer
Two love bugs mate on my leg
Until I draw them off with this
#2 pencil. The pair crawls past
my thumb as I write—then up
to the pink eraser which must taste
funny to tongue buds on their feet.
They fly away, black-legged snow-
flakes. We think of Christmas specials
where painted children catch snow
on tongues to welcome winter.
“Open wide, kids,†I say. “There’s
never snow in South Texas.â€
My son plays along and we run
up and down the blacktop lot—
heat rising in waves around us—
we must look a pair of Baptist Johns,
prophesying protein in the desert.
A voice of two calling between
parked cars: “Prepare the way
for summer bugs. Make straight
your tongues for them.†Push that
play too far and bugs become God.
All mankind finds salvation in bugs.
And why not? God can raise up
children from rocks and bugs—
even cars with bug-splattered bumpers.
Second, here’s how the poem fits the mash-up rules.
A few weeks ago, we drove (automobiles) to a family reunion (relatives) where my children and I found ourselves surrounded by bugs on our little vacation (recreation) to decorate the graveyard at the Hebron Baptist Church. In fact, the bugs were so thick, we talked about how it was like a blizzard of black snowflakes with legs. My son loved this because he keeps bugs as pets (which means he puts them in bug cages over-night and holds a daily funeral for the ones who don’t make it). You can see from the picture above what so many bugs do to a white car (automobile—again). The snowstorm made me think of the peanuts gang catching snow on their tongues (like food) in the television Christmas special. At that point, my mind took off, and I started writing this poem.
I have to ask, though. Who uses the word automobile anymore, Bob?
Also, Gordon, you asked about W. P. and decoration. I provide a long answer in the audio file above. And you can see W. P.’s grave there on the right. He is my kid’s great-great-great-great granddad. Or maybe just great-great-great, I can never remember.
One last thing about poetry. Bob’s project “What I Learned From…” suggests that I’ll have answers for you here. But poetry isn’t very good at providing answers in the traditional sense. Nevertheless, I hope you’ve found some things to think about in my mash-up of mashed-up of bibles, bugs on my windshield, the subsequent discussions that followed us that weekend, and Writing, Children, Television, Recreation, Relatives, Food, Pets, Automobiles.
Yesterday after we had our new pastor over for an old-fashioned pot roast lunch, complete with my wife’s to-die-for homemade chocolate pie, I found myself weeping while I did the dishes.
The pie really was that good, but it didn’t make me weep. And the pastor wasn’t picking on me. Or at least, he didn’t make me cry.
Stephen Eley, Ken Scholes, and Edward Bear did that.
I’ve been talking to Ken Mann a bit via email lately. He directed me to this video that wrestles with relativism and the human need for absolute truth–and a rowdy discussion of the video over at ThinkingChristian.
The video is not quite three minutes. (Click here if it won’t load.)
Second, Hugh Hewitt invited us to be on his radio show this afternoon. (Mark has been on Hugh’s show several times, like yesterday, but this is a first for me!) We’re taping it at 1:30 PST, and it will go on the show later today. I think you’ll be able to stream it from his site this evening as well.
Yesterday, Mark D. Robert’s comment section exploded, and he wisely chose to remain above the fray, popping in every so often to remind people to be civil.
Why? Mark D. Roberts—I think I can call him my friend, Mark D. Roberts—has done something wonderfully gutsy. He debated Christopher Hitchens on Hugh Hewitt’s Townhall, and now he’s blogging a more thoughtful, less interrupted response.Â
I finished listening to the debate this morning while I rode my bike to work. (Life is good.) And here is my primary thought.
I’ve always loved the First Mover speech from Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. So here is a little lyric I wrote inspired by that concept and my son’s experience moving from San Antonio to Kerrville when he was just a year old. (We actually moved on his birthday!)
Underneath the text of the poem, I’m embedding a little podcast if you want to hear me read it. (I feel strongly that poetry should be experienced out loud.)Â
…and Children, Television, Recreation, Relatives, Food, Pets, Automobiles, Bugs, and Bibles
A few weeks ago, we drove (automobiles) to a family reunion (relatives) where my children and I found ourselves surrounded by bugs on our little vacation (recreation) to decorate the graveyard at the Hebron Baptist Church. In fact, the bugs were so thick, we talked about how it was like a blizzard of black snowflakes with legs. My son loved this because he keeps bugs as pets (which means he puts them in bug cages over-night and holds a daily funeral for the ones who don’t make it). You can see from the picture above what so many bugs do to a white car (automobile—again). The snowstorm made me think of the peanuts gang catching snow on their tongues (like food) in the television Christmas special. At that point, my mind took off, and I started writing this poem.
Yesterday after we had our new pastor over for an old-fashioned pot roast lunch, complete with my wife’s to-die-for homemade chocolate pie, I found myself weeping while I did the dishes.
