Poetry as Spiritual Practice

Reading, Writing, and Using Poetry in Your Daily Rituals, Aspirations, and Intentions

Robert McDowell

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781416566908
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Poesia

"[When we read and write poetry, ] it is as if a long-settled cloud in our mind suddenly dissipates, and we are divine once again." -- from the Introduction Poetry is the language of devotion in prayer, chant, and song. Reading and writing poetry creates clarity, deepens and expands spiritual inquiry, and cultivates wisdom, compassion, self-confidence, patience, and love. In author Robert McDowell's words, poetry makes you into a tuning fork of the Divine. But poetry has disappeared over the centuries from religious ceremonies, academic curricula, and public discourse. In Poetry as Spiritual Practice, the first inspirational and instructional guide to combine poetry and spirituality, McDowell restores poetry as the natural language of spiritual practice and invites you to recognize poetry as "the pure sound and shape of your spirit." Vividly illustrated with a wide range of poems from all historical eras and poetic traditions, numerous religions and faiths, and McDowell's own and his students' work, Poetry as Spiritual Practice will reintroduce you to the unique pleasure of verse. And meditations throughout will allow you to integrate reading and writing poetry into your spiritual journeys and daily life. Since many of us have long forgotten, or never learned, the mechanics and terminology of poetry -- trochaic feet and tropes trip us up; we can't tell a villanelle from its shorter cousin, rondeau; and a terza rima may as well be a tanka -- this is also an instructional handbook on reading and writing poetry. An engaging guide through the landscape of world poetry, McDowell argues along the way for the many practical benefits of poetic literacy. Making poetry an essential part of daily rituals, aspirations, and intentions will put you on the path to greater meaning, growth, and peace in your life. At once an engaging technical primer, a profound meditation on the relationship between poetry and the Divine, and an inspirational guide for integrating poetry into spiritual practice, Poetry as Spiritual Practice will become a cherished companion.

Three

Forms for Practice

8

Haiku: Perfection of a Seed

Haiku is one of the most popular Asian forms to grace American poetry. The therapist and hymn writer Maureen Hicks has said that she often experiences haiku as spiritual practice. Traditionally referring to a season or other elements of the natural world, haiku is like a delicate focal point to the contemplative mind. There is no room in the haiku for busyness or a chattering mind. Several examples follow.

Black cloudbank broken

Scatters in the night…Now see

Moon-lighted mountain!

(Basho)

On the Death of His Child

Dew evaporates

And all our world is dew…so dear,

So fresh, so fleeting.

(Issa)

Haiku (for Paul Robeson)

your voice unwrapping

itself from the Congo

contagious as shrines.

(Sonia Sanchez)

The laden wagon runs

Rumbling and creaking down the road.

Three peonies tremble.

(Buson)

Take the round flat moon

Snap this twig for a handle.

What a pretty fan!

(Sokan)

The flowering bush

With only one bloom, the rest

Shut for the winter.

(Jane Mary Katherine McDowell)

In unending rain

The house-pent boy is fretting

With his brand-new kite.

(Shoha)

Senryu is a variation of haiku that features humor instead of seasons and the natural world. The Basho translation below is one example, and the haiku that follows is another.

Only one guy and

Only one fly trying to

Make the guest room do.

(Basho, trans. Cid Corman)

He did it—Mickey

Mantle in bike spokes. A boy

adds up his losses.

It seems that every generation of American poets produces at least some memorable poems in this supposedly simple, unadorned form. A well-written haiku is a beautiful vessel, like a seed (a vessel containing life itself). It’s a tricky business, attaining the perfection of a seed. If wisdom is an essential component of haiku, then the form itself encourages the writer to traverse the precarious path toward emotional, spiritual breakthrough.

A legend has it that one day a pilgrim visited a grove of five sacred oak trees. Out of each tree grew seven limbs, and on all but the bottom two limbs of each tree perched a bird’s nest. A farmer rested under the shade of the tree nearest the road, where a pilgrim joined him.

“How long,” the pilgrim asked, “has each tree had seven limbs, and birds’ nests on all but the lower two limbs?”

“Forever,” the farmer replied. “Since before the question could even be conceived. Since the beginning, five-seven-five.”

Haiku in Japanese literally means “beginning-verse.” It is an excellent form for a writer in English to study and practice if one wishes to write in syllabics, which means counting the syllables, rather than the feet, in each line.

The haiku is made up of seventeen syllables. Lines one and three contain five syllables, while line two contains seven. Traditionally, haiku includes the name of a season, or a word or words that suggest a particular season, but in contemporary American haiku this requirement is often discarded.

Basho (1644–1694), a Zen Buddhist student in later life, is generally considered the great master of haiku. Buson (1715–1783) and Issa (1763–1827) are also widely celebrated as profound masters of the form.

As Basho and others who followed him knew, the spiritual journey is possible only if we learn how to pay attention to the smallest details, those facts we overlook so easily because we are in a hurry, too busy, too anxious to slow down, to watch and wait. This demanding process of mindfulness requires the patience of an earthworm, a snail. You strive to transport yourself into the thready veins of the apple blossom, the tiny bones of a bird’s ear. Haiku asks us to slow down, to recognize and appreciate the minute details that make up and give substance to life itself. As Robert Frost once said, poetry is a way of remembering what it would impoverish us to forget. Haiku is an effective structure for mindfulness and memory.

Writers who include haiku in their writing and spiritual practice eventually notice significant breakthroughs in both. Working in miniature is an exacting practice. Every syllable counts; every syllable must be just right. Observation and accuracy are essential. Basho wrote, “Haiku is simply what is happening in this place at this moment.” The profound poetry of total awareness and presence, haiku helps us discover the gold nugget in a seemingly played-out, barren hillside. It unlocks the great positive energy in modesty and honesty.

Exercise: Making Lists

Haiku requires that you use in your writing what you observe with all of your senses. In your notebooks, make a list of four smells you are aware of at this moment. Make a second list of three colors you see. Make a third list of five things you see out the window. Make a fourth list of four things you observe on the floor or ground. Make a fifth list of characteristics you observe in someone or several people near by.

From these lists, compose ten haiku. Finally, write three prose paragraphs describing the sensations you became aware of as you composed your haiku. Isn’t it fascinating that your haiku says in three lines what your paragraphs say in—how many words?

Include your new haiku in your spiritual practice as you focus on simplicity, joy, balan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Colophon
• ALSO BY ROBERT MCDOWELL
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• One: The Shape of Practice, the Mystery of Poetry
• Two: Building Blocks
• Three: Forms for Practice
• Four: Three Genres for Practice
• In Closing
• Poems Included as Illustrations Within Chapters
• Acknowledgments
• Permissions
• About the Author