Religious Imagination

New Web Home!

2011-07-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

This blog is currently on haitus! For more some choice morsels and more up-to-date information, please visit elizabethharlanferlo.com

Go into your cell and your cell will teach you everything*

2010-08-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

Religious Imagination, the blog, is now on indefinite hiatus. This will come as no surprise to folks who have been attempting to read this blog frequently. While it began as a place to reflect on functioning as a school chaplain, that role has shifted so much for me both personally and professionally that the blog's original purpose had to change as well. The blog became about religion and

Deconstruction Poems

2010-06-29T22:59:00.001-07:00

I've been writing poems about my house as it's remodeled, and so this rings right now. Verse Daily: Compendium of Lost Objects by Nicole Cooley Compendium of Lost Objects Not the butterfly wing, the semiprecious stones, the shard of mirror, not the cabinet of curiosities built with secret drawers to reveal and conceal its contents, but the batture, the rope swing, the rusted barge

Speaking Religiously with Children

2010-06-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Faith, one of my favorite NPR shows, just reran their interview with Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso. Her books were major parts of my curriculum when I worked with elementary school children. I was struck again by how well she puts things and how the questions Krista Tippett asks her are the exact kinds of things a chaplain encounters. You can listen or read a transcript here.

Pre-Facebook...

2010-06-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

From Lapham's Quarterly.

Grunge by Yusef Komunyakaa

2010-05-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

No, sweetheart, I said courtly love.I was thinking of John Donne's"Yet this enjoys before it woo,"but my big hands were dreamingPinetop's boogie-woogie pianotaking the ubiquitous night apart.Not Courtney. I know "Inflated Tear"means worlds approaching pain& colliding, or a heavenly bodycalling to darkness, & that shamehas never been my truest garmentbecause I was born afraid of needles.But I've

Divas and Social Justice

2010-05-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Continuing the Lady Gaga remix topic from a previous post, check this out. It's a direct action in a hotel that won't settle with workers over healthcare. A bunch of folks do a coreographed number right there in the lobby.What is it about diva-pop that lends itself to remakes and satires. Yes, it's campy, but how does that connect to the numerous remakes that push the envelope in terms

Divas and Social Justice

2010-05-11T12:47:00.000-07:00

Continuing the Lady Gaga remix topic from a previous post, check this out. It's a direct action in a hotel that won't settle with workers over healthcare. A bunch of folks do a coreographed number right there in the lobby. (Sorry not to embed the video, but I can't make blogger and YouTube agree on size.) What is it about diva-pop that lends itself to remakes and satires. Yes, it's campy,

NPM# 30: goodbye device

2010-05-01T00:09:00.000-07:00

—› —› —› (blank or empty?) knot shackled to spiral, loose ends looped mask attempts to heal what keeps coming back around / up / down (should have killed you when I had the chance / choice) as if I could exit twice what steps in for you the rest of life always collapsing

NPM # 29: "I pray you tarry..."

2010-05-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

I pray you, tarry: pause a day or two Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong, I lose your company: therefore forbear awhile. There's something tells me, but it is not love, I would not lose you; and you know yourself, Hate counsels not in such a quality. But lest you should not understand me well,-- And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,-- I would

NPM #28: The Green Stamp Book

2010-04-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

by Susan Wheeler, from Ledger, 2005. Sourced from The Academy of American Poets. Child in the thick of yearning. Doll carted and pushed like child. The aisles purport opportunities — looking up, the women's chins, the straight rows of peas and pretzels, Fizzies' foils, hermetic boxes no one knows. I'll get it! What thing therein — bendy straws, powder blue pack Blackjack gum — will this

NPM #27: Home Sick

2010-04-28T21:37:00.000-07:00

by Crystal Williams, from Lunatic, 2002. Living in Portland, Oregon is to live atop Mt. Hood where it's cold as a witch's tit & unabashedly white. In these parts, folk day-trip to the mountain to do God knows what, ski or hike, fuck up the habitat. In Detroit, there's not nature outside of our own unrelenting mess. My students say this aversion to nature is a fault. They misunderstand. I'm not

NPM #26: Theodicy

2010-04-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Josh and I went to graduate school together for a year, but I was too shy back then to talk to him about the religious strands in his poems. This one is exactly it. Read more by Josh here. by Joshua Robbins, from the journal Waccamaw, No. 5. Cold sweeps east across the asphalt predestined for the warehouses of the snow, the darkening suburbs. I think of Job, and wonder if God ever

NPM #25: Creation Myths

2010-04-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

by Wendy Battin, from Little Apocolypse, 1997 There is another world, but it is in this one. -Paul Valery Why we make Russian dolls, make Chinese boxes. Why we wrap the lump of coal gaily at Chrismas: Here. For you. There is another word but is in this one: say, is one. Say, son, what was that planet inside you we could not fly to. Why we talk to empty chairs. Why we

NPM# 24: The Snakes of September

2010-04-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

by Stanley Kunitz, from Passing Through: The Later Poems. This poem is the one that gave the title to the lovely book about Kunitz's garden. All summer I heard them rustling in the shrubbery, outracing me from tier to tier in my garden, a whisper among the viburnums a signal flashed from the hedgerow, a shadow pulsing in the barberry thicket. Now that the nights are chill and the annuals spent,

NPM #23: "Fame is a Fickle Food"

2010-04-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

This one's for Pan, who attempted to break a record by eating 10 handpies this evening.by Emily Dickenson, 1869 Fame is a fickle food Upon a shifting plate Whose table once a Guest but not The second time is set. Whose crumbs the crows inspect And with ironic caw Flap past it to the Farmer's Corn – Men eat of it and die.

NPM #22: English as a Second Language

2010-04-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

by April Bernard, from Swan Electric, 2002. Courtesy of The Academy of American Poets. That voice—from the tv—that voice, thick smoky cheese, or, no— dark as burnt flan, sweet, venison-sweet in the heavy smoke of a tavern hearth, and hot as brandy. I served that voice for months, in a theater on 13th near Third where losers are the ones who crack first. I gave you azured hours, nights, and you

NPM# 21: At Luca Signorelli's Resurrection of the Body

2010-04-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

by Jorie Graham, from Erosion, 1983. Sourced from the The Poetry Center at Smith College. See how they hurry to enter their bodies, these spirits. Is it better, flesh, that they should hurry so? From above the green-winged angels blare down trumpets and light. But they don't care, they hurry to congregate, they hurry into speech,

NPM #20: Nothing Stays Put

2010-04-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

by Amy Clampitt. Courtesy of The Academy of American Poets. In memory of Father Flye, 1884-1985 The strange and wonderful are too much with us. The protea of the antipodes--a great, globed, blazing honeybee of a bloom-- for sale in the supermarket! We are in our decadence, we are not entitled. What have we done to deserve all the produce of the tropics-- this fiery trove, the largesse of it

NPM #19: Dear Ralph Lauren,

2010-04-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Might I, if there's one in stock, be sent theRalph Lauren Winchester Toteshaped like the feedbags I've seen strapped on thefierce muzzles of the horses in pictureschilden are shown to depict for them how tasks, such as the feeding of horses, were accomplished in the Old West. As youknow, the weave of the woolof the Winchester Tote is gun—check plaid, so please don't confuse my order with

NPM #18: When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd (excerpt)

2010-04-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

The President Lincoln lilac I planted last year bloomed today! by Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass. 1900. Sourced from bartleby.com19Passing the visions, passing the night; Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands; Passing the song of the hermit bird, and the tallying song of my soul, (Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying, ever-altering song, As low and wailing,

NPM #17: Atlantis--A Lost Sonnet

2010-04-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

by Eavan Boland from Domestic Violence, 2007. How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder that a whole city--arches, pillars, colonnades, not to mention vehicles and animals--had all one fine day gone under? I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then. Surely a great city must have been missed? I miss our old city-- white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting under fanlights and low

God is Still Posting Promotional Spots

2010-04-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

The Language of God from United Church of Christ on Vimeo. I am intrigued by this video, along with having some denominational envy. The UCC campaign, "God is Still Speaking," symbolized by a white comma on a black background, is an idea that connects to the Word-based religion structure of Christianity in a clean way, although it does make me question God's grammar. ("Never put a period

NPM #16: A Blessing

2010-04-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

by James Wright. Courtesy of The Academy of American Poets. Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have been grazing all day, alone. They ripple tensely, they

NPM# 15: Meditation at Lagunitas

2010-04-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

This is another one high on my list of most important poems. by Robert Hass, from Praise, 1979. Reprinted at the Poetry Foundation. All the new thinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old thinking. The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown- faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk of that

NPM# 14: Topaz

2010-04-14T23:00:00.000-07:00

by Carl Phillips, Speak Low, 2008. Meanwhile, belief elsewhere enough abounding. Ritual's not what I mean though-- or not exactly. Not the bones of ceremony, either: insufficient, finally, to our longing now to fill a space, and now--getting filled--to be the space itself. . . But as when the body lies restless, votive, in a nakedness with which holiness

NPM# 13: There But For the Grace

2010-04-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

by Wislawa Szymborska, 1972. It could have happened. It had to happen. It happened sooner. Later. Nearer. Farther. It happened not to you. You survived because you were the first. You survived because you were the last. Because you were alone. Because of people. Because you turned left. Because you turned right. Because rain fell. Because a shadow fell. Because sunny weather prevailed.

NPM# 12: When the Spirit Comes to Him as the Voice of Morning Light

2010-04-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

by Michael McGriff, from Dismantling the Hills, 2008. An Oregon poem for an Oregon night, in which I heard a great reading by Robin Cody (Not a poet, but he read like one, only better.) You held your head in the Millicoma River opened your eyes before the spawning kings, beheld the chuff of their rotting heads, and said, Is this the milk of Paradise? to no one. And when on one and nothing

NPM #11: Don't Come Home

2010-04-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

ranks first among the worst things someone you love can say. Not even the common I hate you does the damage Don’t come home will do. You can live with I hate you, same as you live with the past. You abide it. I hate you in fact can be worth coming home to, like anything built to last. I hate you may be the mythical two in the bush the bird in the hand is worth, while Don’t come home, by contrast,

NPM# 10: The Guitar

2010-04-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

In honor of the flamenco musicians and dancers I saw this evening. by Federico García Lorca from Cante Jondo. Translated by Cola Franzen, courtesy of The Academy of American Poetry. The weeping of the guitar begins. The goblets of dawn are smashed. The weeping of the guitar begins. Useless to silence it. Impossible to silence it.

NPM #9: WHACHER (excerpted from The Glass Essay)

2010-04-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

Even this lengthy part is just a taste of this amazing poem series, in which I find myself continually wound. (The Emily referred to here is Emily Bronte.) Go on, read the whole thing. by Anne Carson, from Glass, Irony and God, 1995. Whacher, Emily’s habitual spelling of this word, has caused confusion. For example in the first line of the poem printed Tell me, whether, is it winter

NPM #8: Ninth Sonnet to Orpheus

2010-04-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

in memory of Hans Peterson, 4/7/2010 by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by David Young in Sonnets to Orpheus, 1987. You have to have been among the shades, tuning your lire there too, if you want vision enough to know how to make lasting praise. You have to sit down and eat with the dead, nibbling their poppies, if you want enough memory to keep the one most delicate note. The image we glimpse

NPM #7: Facts About the Moon

2010-04-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

To experience this poem the way I did the first time, listen to Dorianne read it here, at Poetry Out Loud. I love Dorianne's work because I always end up somewhere I didn't expect to, but then realize it was just the place where I was secretly thinking of going. by Dorianne Laux, from Facts About the Moon, 2007. The moon is backing away from us an inch and a half each year. That means if you’re

NPM #6: The Explosion

2010-04-06T20:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my teacher Dorianne Laux, who posted this earlier today. by Philip Larkin, from High Windows, 1974. On the day of the explosion Shadows pointed towards the pithead: In the sun the slagheap slept. Down the lane came men in pitboots Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke, Shouldering off the freshened silence. One chased after rabbits; lost them; Came back with a nest of lark's

NPM #5: Noli Me Tangere

2010-04-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

by Jorie Graham, from The End of Beauty. 1 You see the angels have come to sit on the delay for a while, they have come to harrow the fixities, the sharp edges of this open sepulcher, they have brought their swiftnesses like musics down to fit the on the listening. Their robes, their white openmindedness gliding into the corners, slipping this way then that over

NPM #4: Visitation

2010-04-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

This is one of my all-time favorite poems. by Mark Doty, from his book, Sweet Machine When I heard he had entered the harbor, and circled the wharf for days, I expected the worst: shallow water, confusion, some accident to bring the young humpback to grief. Don't they depend on a compass lodged in the salt-flooded folds of the brain, some delicate musical mechanism to

NPM #3: The Waking

2010-04-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

by Theodore Roethke. Courtesy of Poetry Out Loud. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk

National Poetry Month Day 2: Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

2010-04-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

by John Donne, via the Poetry Foundation. Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is, And as the other Spheares, by being growne Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne, And being by others hurried every day, Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey: Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit For their first

National Poetry Month 2010 Begins!

2010-04-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

In honor of National Poetry Month, I'll be linking to a different poem (or poem-related item) every day. Whoo hoo! (Or I should say whoo!/hoo!//)From Sanctificum by Chris Abani. (Copper Canyon Press, 2010.) Elephants1 There was this small college in the South where I read and three white boys in the audience in KKK outfits, stiff like lilies for a funeral. The walk up to them was long with

2010-03-30T20:28:00.000-07:00

In today's New York Times Op-Ed, David Brooks refers to a study that shows that relationships have a greater impact on the measure of a person's happiness than growth in their income. If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing

Lady Gaga goes Hasidic

2010-03-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

This is religion and culture at its best. If you know the original song by Lady Gaga, (Paparazzi) you'll get a huge kick out of this:h/t to SOF observed via Jewcy

Il Pranzo di Natale

2010-01-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

On Christmas day my family crossed through the Piazza Santa Maria Trastevere, one of my favorite places in Rome, on our way to volunteer at Il Pranzo di Natalie, the San Egidio lunch for the poor. Like many of the piazzas, Santa Maria di Trastevere’s size and scale makes it feel like a stage set. Above the arches that lead into the church are painted a line of seated women saints, with Mary in

Fecundity Fugue

2009-11-29T13:55:00.000-08:00

The school is rife with mealworms. I discovered this during parent teacher conferences last week. Most of the mealworms seem to be kept in lockers. Turns out many senior students are taking a Natural History course in which they interact with the animal world around them in various ways, including building aquaria, bird boxes, bat boxes (which can be larger than bird boxes, as bats will

Risk A Million Ways

2009-11-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

When I was twelve years old, my parents took positions with Semester at Sea. Aboard a ship with a Taiwanese officer corps, Filipino crew and pack of mostly American, mostly rich undergrads, we travelled to nine different ports of call in the course of three months. I was in seventh grade at the time. Needless to say, this trip shaped me in both superficial and significant ways, not the least

Winter Fattening

2009-11-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

This summer's poem-a-day blogging crew has begun another project: long poems, of which we publish small (very drafty) pieces. Find it at http://winterfat.wordpress.com. To see all of a single poet's work, search the category list or tags cloud by name.A lengthier post to come.

Things I Liked This Month

2009-10-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

Due to school madness, a birthday with a zero in it, and other goodness, I've been sparse about posting. So here's a longer list of things I liked recently. I've been great about not freaking out about H1N1 until very recently. I am suspicious of things like large-scale vaccines. But here is an article talking about the safety-of-the-mob vaccination issue for those who are immune-suppressed

"Yet he could not escape notice..."

2009-10-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

The Gospel this day is the gentile woman who begs for her daughter to be healed. And then right after her, the deaf man. Jesus is trying to travel quietly, and failing. It is right at the end of the Gospel, when the Gospel procession was heading back up the chancel steps, that there is a murmuring. Something is taking shape in the crowd, centering into a particular pocket in the front, left

Human Resources and What We Mean

2009-09-27T14:16:00.000-07:00