At BYU’s Illuminating the Word symposium, Constance Furey from Indiana University and Peter Hawkins from Yale Divinity School speak about devotional poetry and the relationship between speaker, text and God.
PROVO, Utah (November 21, 2014)—While scholars often shy away from religious topics, BYU’s Illuminating the Word symposium investigated the relationship between spiritual and poetic practices. At a panel session, Constance Furey and Peter Hawkins spoke on devotional poetry.
Furey, an associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University, said, “Lyric poetry invites us to establish a relationship of the self with the self. Devotional lyric, however, extends a different invitation – speaking to and about God.”
Many modern readers think devotional lyric poetry is about tracking the presence or absence of the divine, but Furey said, “Even a lament of absence is an acknowledgement of a divine presence.”
For example, in Confessions of Saint Augustine, “the question at stake is not the presence or absence of God, but what it means to live and move and have our being with God,” said Furey. “It’s not about achieving God’s affection or desire, but how one responds – how one acts after or as one achieves it.”
In reading devotional lyric there are three participants: the text, the reader and Christ. “The text interposes to bring love to light,” said Furey. “The reader may claim Christ as the object of affection, but the experience of love is catalyzed by the text.”
She also said that to write of Christ is to love Christ. “To use poetic power of language to make Him loveable depends on the readers’ love of the text – which in turn can be called holy. Active engagement is itself the delight; active engagement is itself the manifestation of love.”
In reading devotional lyric, “The savor of experience is more important than what is learned,” said Furey.
“These poems aren’t struggling with loss and seeking to receive wholeness, but more they are engaging with the presence. The medium is the message. The interactive dynamic of language – the interactivity of language – is part of the medium,” said Furey.
“These poems refer us to the activity itself – between reader, text and God,” said Furey. Devotional lyric is more than a monologue of the writer. Rather, devotional lyric is a conversation between the writer and the divine, and forms a trinity of a relationship that includes the reader.
Following Furey, Hawkins, a professor of religion and literature at Yale Divinity School, spoke on the psalms of the Hebrew Bible and poems by George Manley Hopkins.
The Biblical psalms, more than anything else, “are about the presence of God and God’s absence,” said Hawkins. “About what it feels like to believe when your cup runneth over with thanksgiving and when you feel yourself dried up.”
He said that the psalms are emotional and dramatic and seem to be more of what is felt rather than what should be said. But even the psalms of lament move from darkness to light.
Hawkins used the example of Psalms 22, where it opens with a plea to God, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Amidst woeful circumstances, the speaker reflects on happy memories. “The psalm moves from lament to a crescendo of praise and a ripple effect of joy,” said Hawkins.
The verses of Psalms are full of praise, but some are full of lament where the speaker can’t be comforted.
“There is no one that catches the bipolar swing between praise and lament more than Gerald Manley Hopkins,” said Hawkins.
Hopkins was a praised poet for many years. Hawkins said, “He celebrated a world charged with the grandeur of God.” Many of his poems speak on the joy of flowers and birds and praise God.
However, the creative outburst faded in the mid-1880s after Hopkins moved to Dublin. Hopkins felt alienated, calling his life, “A life among strangers.” He also had failing health and a seeming “psychological disease that almost led to the edge of madness,” said Hawkins.
His poems during this time were packed full of misery and called to God out of the depths of Hell.
Hawkins explained, “What overwhelms the poet is feeling defeated by the one he is trying to serve.”
One of his final poems written before he died depicts the sorrow Hopkins felt. But the poem ends with a supplication to the Lord. “The showers of blessings never fall, but in a final turn to call upon the Lord, he gives evidence of a root of faith,” said Hawkins.
He concluded, “The need to let the suffering speak is the condition of all truth. Hopkins knew this of poetry and prayer. He spoke honestly, whether of lilies or turmoil. So must any devotional poet.”
—Stephanie Bahr Bentley (B.A. English ’14)