Philip Kolin has once again heard the
whisper of God’s word with the ear of his heart and given poetic expression to
the timeless value of that word.
Many of the poems achieve their effect
through the use of synesthesia (“a man tastes names,” “Genesis”). Many are also
written as lists that build to a resonating moment. Take “On His Comfort.”
Musing on God’s concern for mankind, the poem is awash in alliteration (a Hopkins
trademark) as it enumerates the ways God has aided his people. The poem’s final
stanza is powerfully evocative: “To Lazarus he says take up your corpse/ And
taste the light. His tears fill twelve/ stone water jars. He raises a daughter/
Coiled in death. Talithacumi, he whispers./ Little one, rise.” The metaphor,
“coiled in death,” seems especially apt.
by Peter Menkin
 |
| Book |
For some time I have thought about and even
meditated on the work of poetry recent to the body of this interview series, as
created by the excellent Roman Catholic Christian poet Philip Kolin, of
Mississippi, USA. His recent collection is titled Reading God’s Handwriting: Poems as published by Kaufmann
Publishing. That pretty little small house owned by the lovely and charming woman
Leslie Kaufmann is located in St. Simons Island, Georgia. A short interview
with her is included in the Addendum to this interview with the poet Philip Kolin.
Note the work is appealing to Roman
Catholics, but as well to others of the Christian faith, including Protestants
and what I am going to call evangelicals and those in their independent suite
where they are non-affiliated with a denomination. This is referred to as, “Called.” I mention this non-affiliated group of
Christians because it seems by observation through the seat of this Religion
Writer’s pants that they’re a larger and more growing group than thought
previously here in the United States. No hard data to support this anecdotal
measurement, but I think it lets the reader know that Philip C. Kolin, though
markedly Roman Catholic with an intelligent and perceived educated view of
faith in Christ, appeals to a wide swath. So be it. For is that not one criterion
for meeting this collection of ongoing interviews with American Christian
poets? Hence his appearance in this group that is now more than four years of
interviews in the making. A book as a collection of the interviews is scheduled
for 2013 with the working title, Interviews
with American Christian Poets by Peter Menkin.
This interview was begun by phone in February, 2013
and through a series of mishaps and mostly miseries delayed in its posting,
despite the fact that poet Kolin, an esteemed professor at the
University of Southern Mississippi in this writer’s estimation, was available.
Philip Kolin bore these events in a spirit of full cooperation.
His
official title is University Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Letters,
The University of Southern Mississippi. The University of Southern
Mississippi is not to be confused with Ole Miss, please.
Poet Kolin wrote out responses to the questions in a
timely manner. Public apology is due for the
 |
| Philip C. Kolin, poet |
unforeseen delay in finishing this
work, and thanks for a job particularly done with care in his usual meticulous
and intellectual manner. Philip Kolin’s
answers, so I have learned about the poet and his habits, in fact his way of
working, have a studied way in discipline and refinement. This is a noteworthy
trait of years of work in the area of scholarship and editing as well as of
poetry. Keep in mind that the poet is well known, even famous, for scholarly
writings. But as you’ll see, poet he most certainly is—thanks be to God.
The following
comments about Reading God's Handwriting
come from Abbot Cletus of St. Bernard Monastery in Cullman, Alabama. It was sent to this Religion
Writer by Kaufmann Publishing and is a complete statement, though also appears
on the back cover of the book in truncated version—a work of poetry published
2012:
In his new volume Reading God s Handwriting Philip Kolin has once again heard the
whisper of God’s word with the ear of his heart and given poetic expression to
the timeless value of that word. His writing reflects a sense of reverence that
seeks to distill the Divine Word of God and assimilate it into his very being.
In the monastic tradition this process is called lectio divina. Such words take
up their dwelling and have meaning only in the repetitive process of a hearing
that leads to a listening, a pondering, and then, after assimilation, is given
expression in the life and activity of the individual. As if praying, Philip
has taken it one step farther and given expression in poetic words of profound
insight and readability. One who has familiarity with the Bible, the Word of
God, will read his poems with delight and will relish the sense of oneness
between the writer and the word he has written. His poems offer a treasure of
insight and could easily be used as a resource for personal prayer and lectio.--Abbot Cletus of St. Bernard Monastery in Cullman, Alabama
In that initial
background conversation by phone with the poet Philip Kolin who was at his home
in Mississippi, from the Religion writer Peter Menkin’s home office in Mill
Valley, California (north of San Francisco). He said about his background that he took his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois, writing on Shakespeare and Elizabethan doctors. He has taught
courses in Shakespeare, American drama, and African American theatre. He
has spent his life writing…20th
century drama person and Shakespearean. Tennessee Williams. Christian symbolism
on Williams and Shakespearean. Christian symbolism. Literature and poetry.
His work as a poet was pursued in this manner, self-described as…Vocation of poetry …30 years of writing
poetry. I taught in the English department for 38 years. Philip Kolin is a Professor of English and also the Editor
of The Southern Quarterly at the
University of Southern Mississippi. He started his editing career at
Northwestern University as the assistant editor of Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama.
Poet Kolin has been editing
since the 70s. … And lives in Mississippi…I am a Mississippi writer, a Mississippi poet. Mississippi
can easily be conceived as the literary capital of America, the home of
Faulkner, Welty, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright. Putting my geography in
perspective, readers can see references to the South in Reading God's
Handwriting--St. Louis Cathedral, the Mississippi River, the blues which
originated in the Delta.
Philip Kolin writes by email regarding his book. He talks
about this is one focus of this piece about his work as a poet:
Reading God's Handwriting is my most recent
book, coming out in August of 2012. Of the poems I have written, the works in God's Handwriting and Deep Wonder: Poems (Grey Owl, 2000) are
the most important for me. Each of my books reflects different books of the
Bible. The Psalms are behind Deep Wonder
while the prophetic books inspired my collection Wailing Walls: Poems. In one sense, Reading God's Handwriting can be seen as a group of parables,
heavily indebted to St. Matthew and St. John as well as Revelation.
More
from this writer’s notes of a conversation in background with the Poet:
Poets
of faith today reflect their own heritage and background. I came to Mississippi
when I was 27 years old. Orthodox Roman Catholic background: Jesuits and think
tank in Chicago. Emerges from a very conservative Catholic viewpoint.
Orientation
is towards Holy Mother Church. I’ve never lost touch with my deeply Catholic
heritage.
One
hallmark of what I do.
Lectio divina is the driving force--the
spirit--behind Reading God's Handwriting. Retrospectively, my earlier
books, Wailing Walls and Deep Wonder, are layered in terms of how one's
knowledge of Scripture. The more the reader brings Holy Writ to the poem, the
more fruitful the reading experience can be. At least, that is my hope.
For me poetry is insistently visual, architectural.
I am concerned about the way a poem looks and how that affects the way
readers receive a poem. I want them to pay attention to line and
stanza breaks, line length and indentations, enjambment and elision.
And
even more from that same set of background conversation by phone to Mississippi
from San Francisco area by Peter Menkin, Religion Writer:
A
lot of my poems are on the Blessed Mother. My Catholicism is not just reserved
for church issues. It
is infused in all my poetry. It is not just a part of my
aesthetics or poetry, it is what I do. The covers of my books profoundly
connect to my theology.
The review of Reading
God’s Handwriting: Poems by poetry editor of the Christian Century is quoted in part by permission of the publisher:
Poetry chronicle
Reading
God’s Handwriting: Poems,
by Philip C. Kolin
A prolific literary critic, editor of the Southern Quarterly, and
University Distinguished Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi,
Philip C. Kolin is
 |
| Jill Baumgaertner |
one of the growing tribe of very fine Christian poets whose
work has often been sequestered in the limited venues of
independent publishers. His newest collection is a beautifully printed, small
hardcover volume that fits comfortably in the palm of the hand.
But
these are not small or comfortable poems. Kolin takes on the most expansive of
subjects: God’s handwriting (or as he puts it in his preface, “God’s hand
writing”) in scripture, history and nature. He draws fresh pictures of biblical
figures such as Joseph (“His staff grew lilies to woo her”); St. Anne (“She sat
on my lap, / My Mater Dei, flesh / Of my flesh”); and Lazarus (“the third day
is déjà vu for him”).
In
a series of Advent poems Kolin identifies the waiting, the watching, the
impatience and the need to stay awake during very sleepy times to attend to a
king whose throne is a womb. In “Holy Communion” he describes the “pilgrimage
of naked faces” and the way “an oratory of mouths waits for / The breath of
infinity to fill them / With a new genealogy / As God places a pearl on each
tongue.” He is able in “Genesis” to summarize the entire first book of the
Bible in 15 lines with a catalog of images that captures its poetry, its main
actors, its violence and its promise.
This religion writer wants to note a lovely poem.
Mary's Aviary
By Philip
Kolin
Mary surely
kept birds
Her life is
chronicled
In their
singing--
Doves
wooing at the beginning
Sparrows
tearing afterwards.
Gabriel
brought her more
Than smooth
words soft as dawn
On his
shoulders sat
The glory
of the sky:
An indigo
bunting
Wailing
blues to the Queen.
In Baroque
frescoes
Birds fan
mother and child,
As escadrille of feathers and breezes
Giving the
air color and the earth air.
Throughout
Nazareth flocks
Of lauding
hummingbirds
And
vespering nightingales
Navigated
the prophecies of her life.
The hour
she ascended
Into a
scrim of gentle clouds
The birds
of this world flew into the east
Until they
became like angels
Whose wings
feast on fire.
 |
| Philip Kolin at the University of Southern
Mississippi |
INTERVIEW WITH THE POET PHILIP KOLIN
BY RELIGION WRITER PETER MENKIN
1. There is much to be said for the
devotional and especially the merit of being a man or woman of faith in the
expressions of religious poetry. Is there anything you’ve noted as a poet in
the development of your own poetry in this area? Is there anything you want to
tell readers about in the metamorphosis of your faith poetry, in its direction
or content that you’ve noticed recently? This especially when it comes to the
work in your new book, Reading God’s
Handwriting: Poems.
Over the last 20 years or so, I
have published five books of poetry plus a good number of poems in Christian
magazines and journals, including America,
Anglican Theological Review, Christianity and Literature, Christian
Century, the Penwood Review, Theology Today, Spiritus, Windhover, etc.
In many ways, my poetry marks my own spiritual autobiography, my encounters
with God on the peaks, the plateaus, and the deep valleys. Years ago, the
Christian writer and scholar Ann Astell said my poems were "prayers that
can be prayed--as meditations . . . sighs of longing, cries of penitence, hymns
of praise, prophetic outcries against evil, and contemplations of God's
beauty." She was right on target.
But my poems did not start out so profoundly. My first book of poems--Roses for
Sharron (1993) --were for the most part secular daydreams, save for a few on my
old parish on the south side of Chicago. The turning point in my poetry came
with Deep Wonder (2000) which together with Wailing
Walls (2006) and Reading God's Handwriting
(2012) forms a trilogy of sorts on how my beliefs shaped my poetry. Each of
these books springs from my being baptized through different books of
Scripture. The poems in Deep Wonder
owe much in spirit and language to the Psalms and the Song of Solomon. Wailing Walls vibrate with the cries
found in the prophetic books- -Jeremiah,
Lamentations, Daniel, Amos, Micah, etc.; and Reading God's Handwriting emerged from both the Hebrew Bible and
the parables and Revelation in the New Testament through deep contemplation of
God's Word.
Guided by the wisdom of and sustained by the promise of the Psalms, the poems
in Deep Wonder came at a time when I
lost a fiancee whom I thought I loved and later learned that the real lover of
my soul was none other than Yahweh. The agonies I heard in the Psalms for God's
intervention, His deliverance, became the poems included in the first two
sections of Deep Wonder--"The
Desert" and "Jesus Ministers." The poems in the later sections
of the book recorded the hope and the spiritual ecstasy it brought- -"The
Banquet of Christ" and "Bravissimo, Abba." A poem entitled
"Christ,
My Courtier"
expresses the exuberance of a lover for the beloved: "He is a suave
courtier/ My Christ, my lover/ He wears a cape of seasons/ And spreads it out/
In the sky/ Midnight blue/ His ring is a solitaire--/ The moon in silver
brilliance."
The poems in Wailing Walls document
an entirely different type of encounter I had with God. They are poems decrying
the injustices of our world--abortion, adultery, poverty, nursing home abuses,
deadbeat dads, HIV, domestic abuse, threats to our environment--and searching
for redemption. The title, of course, refers to the famous penitential place in
Jerusalem where cries for forgiveness and petitions for help were left inside
the wall itself. In my poems the walls become the individual speakers who beg
for help in their suffering. The opening poem--"Wailing
Walls"--describes the walls and those who come to them for mercy--
"They are made of pain/ Paper and prayers/ Loamed in lamentation/ Crying
stones/ Set on memories/ Trowled from broken/ Pieces of dreams/ Sharp
betrayals/ Frightened futures/ The whirling voices/ In this place/ Are
fugitives from kindness." My poem "Christmas at St. Simon's Mission, "
inspired by an actual Anglican Church, asks readers to see and help "The
men on homeless row" against the backdrop of God’s love likened to the
waves of the sea; the men "roll in/waves of smoke, laughing,/Coughing,
chewing tobacco/ Hiding their half pints/ In torn overcoats, chipped/ Teeth
showing/ They wear smiles in their lapels/ And shift from one foot/ To
another,/ And back again."
My most recent book, and what I regard as my best one, Reading God's Handwriting: Poems, came from reading God's two books--Scripture and nature. Every poem in
the collection is firmly anchored in Biblical topoi--whether it be allusion,
character, parable, instruction, or place. The idea for this book predates its
publication by at least a decade when in 2001 I saw Giambattisa Tieplo's
magnificent painting on St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Teresa of Avilia's
spiritual director, when it was on tour in Jackson, Mississippi. Tieplo catches St. Peter writing about Christ's Passion, quill in
hand and ear attentive as the Paraclete (as the dove) whispers words into his
ear, giving St. Peter the inspiration--the very words--he needs to write his
commentary. Folded away in my memory, this painting came together with my
reading about Lectio Divina (the sacred ritual of reading, meditating,
applying, and acting on Scripture). It seemed as if every time I picked up my
Bible, God sent me to a passage that then inspired a poem.
The poems in Reading God's Handwriting are a diverse group--on the cardinal
virtues, saints, the Blessed Mother, even poems on individual books of the
Bible, e.g., "Genesis," Habakkuk’s soliloquy." Possibly the most important poem I have ever done is
"Holiness Is," and certainly the most challenging, but I hope
rewarding.
2. What was it that brought you to the
“need” to write poetry about God and religion, especially in your own
denomination as a Roman Catholic? Do you think that your mother, who was a
devoted and practicing Roman Catholic, contributed to your own Catholicism? And
in so doing, what areas of that faith and yours have melded in both worship
practice and your poetic work?
My
faith and my poetics meld. My belief as a Roman Catholic has shaped every
religious poem I have written. A cradle Catholic, I came from a family of very
staunch believers. My grandparents were named Mary and Joseph, which, I
suspect, symbolically set the stage for my family and faith values. I was
raised by my mother and aunt who were devout Catholics; in fact my Aunt Loretta
was the most influential person of my life. She was a Dominican Tertiary, lay
persons who serve the Church and others by following the Dominican take on
theology and community.
I
attended a Catholic grammar school, St. Pius V, and St. Ignatius College Prep
in Chicago. My Catholicism created who I am. Regarded as one of the most
intellectually demanding high schools in Chicago, St. Ignatius had a rigorous
curriculum (with an emphasis on languages, including four years of Latin), and
was founded, of course, on Jesuit spirituality. Every paper submitted, whether
a research paper or a quiz, carried the Jesuit motto, AMDG, which stands for Ad
Majorem Dei Gloriam, all for the honor and glory of God. AMDG was indelibly
imprinted on my soul and my writing. God was creating a bond between writing
and service to Him.
I grew up in a
neighborhood where the church was a central part of our life. We lived on the
same block as St. Pius, and all activities were Church-directed—whether
attending Mass, Novenas, holy hours, devotions to saints, bazaars, even bingos.
My poems are filled with references to Catholic rituals, e.g. thurifers used to
incense the altar.
Catholicism continued
to be a strong influence when I came to the University of Southern Mississippi
in Hattiesburg, which, unlike Chicago, was a missionary diocese because of the
small number of Roman Catholics. We have been blessed
to have spirited Irish priests like Fr. Tommy Conway and a deacon like Ralph
Torrelli. I joined a charismatic prayer group where I met a woman,
Margie Parish, a former Benedictine nun, who has been my spiritual director for
35 years.
[In the Preface to Deep Wonder, he writes:
When I desperately
needed love, God filled my emptiness with His very self. God sent Himself to
help me keep a promise that He Himself fulfilled… Each night I prayed with
trust and with hope. The more I prayed, the more God asked me to write about
love, but love for Him. He told me that He was the desire of my heart…]
[My spiritual mother, Margie Parish, a
woman of powerful faith and enormous love for me, led me to Scripture and
deepened my prayer life in innumerable ways. Knowing that I had written poetry
before, Margie told me that if I only obeyed and listened to God, He would
whisper love poems to me…]
But, as I look back, I
have been priested by women throughout my lifetime—my mother and aunt, Margie, Mary Torrelli, Sister Carmelita Stinn, SFCC, Sister
Annette Seymour, RSM. Very symbolic for me was seeing the three cardinal
virtues (faith, hope, and charity) represented by the statues of three women
atop the high altar at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The one of charity
informs my poem about this virtue in Reading God's Handwriting.
Although I have been nurtured by Holy Mother Church, I
have also been enlightened and inspired by the ecumenical spirit of
Hattiesburg. At one point in my life, I even wrote a few calls to
worship and
lyrics for a large Methodist church. Seeing my words on the church's two large
screens was one of the most humbling events of my life. For years one of my
closest friends was a retired Episcopal priest, Rev. G. Edward Lundin, and
another dear friend and attorney, Nancy Steen, a fervent Methodist, has also
played a major role in my faith life.
3.
There are a number
of your poems included in the Addendum to this interview, and I am sure as a
religion writer I know your own religious experience prompted and guided these
poems. Tell us something about why certain poems may be your favorites and how
they capture what you believe are true poetic moments. Will you quote some
lines from those poems? Tell us something of these
favorites from your recent and even previous published works. Will you quote
some words from those poems you have in mind?
For me the copy text, the spirit,
if you will, of my poetry comes from the opening to St. John’s Gospel, “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” And later we hear “The Word
was made flesh” (John 1:14). The kenosis becomes verbal. The polarities of the
verbal eternal and temporal are the polarities of my faith that help me to
write poems where I see God as the one Word who makes words. I found that the
Poet God is the Word made words, the author of all creation. That to me opens
doors into my beliefs and why so many of my poems visually and verbally allude
to the kenosis. Here are some lines from a poem, “Mary Covenant,” I wrote more
than a decade ago that illustrate the way in which the Word becomes (poetic)
words/flesh:
See
now
Today
Christ
Descending
into
Mary
Christmas
Similarly, in a much more recent poem, “Holiness Is”
from Reading God's Handwriting, I picture God (“the bread of angels”)
descending into a pyx, the small case carried by priests and Eucharistic
ministers when they make sick calls. Here are the last four lines:
panis anglorum multiplied
like those loaves and fish,
multiplying
still inside spired tabernacles
lux mundi
the
light of the world in this small pyx.
The sacred
ritual of lectio divina, which
provides the spiritual energy behind Reading
God’s Handwriting also celebrates the Word through the creation/signage of
words. (So many of the poems in this book reference texts—everything from the
Torah to church bulletins—and the instruments used to write, be they quills, scrolls,
or vellum.) In the poem entitled “Lectio Divina” monks, gathered with their
cowls up, look for God in the shape, form, the architecture of words. The truth
of God becomes manifested through worldly discourse on language.
They
read about Him
In
the tiny curved places
Where
God’s ear is closest
His
voice clearest
In
the serifs, parentheses
Apostrophes,
the calligraphy
Of
creation
The
Word enters in silence
They
have become adjectives
Seeking
the only noun that counts.
Praying the holy office, the monks have become
“adjectives,” or worshipers, reverencing God, the only noun who can count
through eternity. Punning on “count,” the line alludes to God who never runs
out of numbers, nor does He need to. I want my readers to be in several places
at once—to be aware of the quotidian, but also to be enveloped by religious
rituals, or how the Word invites us to go through and beyond the words to reach
God. In a sense, the poem takes readers on a pilgrimage of words.
So
my poetics run from AMDG to the various words/voices in which my poems become a
ritual honoring God. Because they represent a multiplicity of meanings, words
reflect our postlapsarian condition. But the Word is immutable. Aptly enough,
I'm working on a book titled In the
Custody of Words for an important series edited by David Craig at
Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.
4. This Religion Writer would be remiss to refuse your comment to me
regarding your scholarly work, for as you say in that email about the
questions: “We can talk about my role as editor and more than 30 books on
Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare, contemporary African American drama, and a
widely used business writing text Successful
Writing at Work. Right now I am working on a book of poems on Emmett Till.”
As interviewer, I am not sure where to begin with this subject, it is so large
in your life and probably looms large in its influence on your poetry. What
about the interplay of your scholarly work on Williams/Shakespeare and how that
has influenced your sense of voice, dramatic situation, etc.
I received my Ph.D.
from Northwestern University writing a dissertation on Shakespeare and
Elizabethan doctors and medicine. And for over 35
years I have taught and published on dramatic literature, including 8
books on Tennessee Williams, 5 on Shakespeare, and a few on African American
playwrights Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks. My work on drama and theatre
certainly has conditioned the way I write poems. I try to be attuned to the
voices, the conflicts, and the denouements within the poems. Reviewers have
often pointed to the strong sense of dramatic setting and tensions in the
poems. A Parable of Women: Poems,
which was published in 2009, contains 23 poems on both Biblical and secular
women—from the Blessed Mother to a homeless post-Katrina widow. There are also
poems “delivered” by Hagar, Herodotus, and two nuns, one just entering the
convent and the other praying during Adoration. Of all my poems, I suspect
those in Parable most obviously
reflect my teaching and research in drama. I tried to capture different female
voices just as one would characters in a play. The poems in the collection
could be described as a theatre of voices. But all my scholarly work has been a
preamble of sorts, along with my Catholic upbringing, for the types of poetry I
write. Of course, the most important book from which I have learned about
voices and drama is the Bible.
You asked about my editing. Over
the years I’ve edited 5 scholarly journals, and have served as the General
Editor for the Routledge Shakespeare Criticism series for years. I have also published 10 editions of a business writing
book titled Successful Writing at
Work (Cengage/Wadsworth), and I always give God the praise for this
work.
Right now I am the editor of the Southern Quarterly and Vineyards: A Journal of Christian Poetry.
I founded Vineyards to give Christian
poets a much needed space where they could share the
fruits of their labors.
Recall that at its most holy, the vineyard can be the sacred space inhabited by
God (John 15:1). I love St. John. Later this year
Vineyards will become an exclusively online journal allowing me to
publish more poets who, like me, share a metaphysical vision of poetry. An
editor’s job is to pay close attention to words, pruning, etc. No wonder I pay
close attention to words. I once wrote a 25-page essay on the word
paper in
A Streetcar Named Desire, where there are so many verbal references
to paper as image and prop. Paper was not only a means of expressing Blanche’s
delusions and vulnerability, but also Stanley’s insistence and reliance on
legal orders, the Napoleonic Code.
People are often surprised that
Philip Kolin the Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare scholar or textbook author
is also the poet. Over the years, I have received emails from individuals who
have used my Successful Writing at Work in
their courses asking if I also am the one who published a poetry book.
Conversely, people I have worked with who write or edit Christian poetry are
amazed to learn I’ve spent such a large part of my career as a Williams and
Shakespeare scholar. Ironically, I have never taken
or taught a poetry writing course.
5. One poet this Religion Writer
interviewed told me writing poetry is an act of prayer. Is it so for you, and
tell us something about what poetry is for you? Speak a little about how you
got started, and importantly when you started editing a magazine of poetry
containing the works of others. In it, what do you look for, and if readers
want to see a copy, where do they get one? Is it a magazine of faith poetry?
Talk to us about that magazine, and your work as an editor. In this long
question, where we touch on editing, tell us something about your poetry style.
As you yourself have framed it, tell us about, “…my
techniques/style, my use of puns, slant lines, poetry as architecture.” Can you
give us an example of one or two?
While God spoke the
Word once and forever, we live in a world of words, some beautiful, some
shattered. As I said earlier, we are in the custody of words. By our human
nature we are bound to a plenitude of words. Hence my poems invite readers to worship
the Word through the various meanings/levels words convey—see the various
angles, the contexts where the Word enters our life. Many of my poems contain double entendres or even triple entendres to account for the way
my readers, you or I go through the flux of time
while, I hope, listening to God's Word calling us into ritual. While, I
hope, listening to God’s Word calling us into ritual. A wholly outrageous
example comes at the end of “The Martha Within” (from Reading God’s Handwriting) where
God
told her
He
loved all those wrinkled
And
sin-stained banquets
Others
gave Him, and told her
To
get cooking on hers.
I’m particularly eager to have readers see theology
through the double entendres as well
as through the architectural shapes of the poem, line and stanza breaks, short
and long lines. I use enjambment, for instance, to envision the earthly/the
flux trying to reach out to the eternal.
“Maranatha”
from Deep Wonder includes the stanza:
I
trust, Lord,
That
you stroll
The
more stormy seas
Of
daily life
With
their pitching cares
And
doubts and cares
Keelhauling
us
Until
we
Squalling
vessels
Are
christened calm.
I hope readers can feel, metaphorically, the
“pitching cares” rocking back and forth between the lines. And christened, of course, refers to being
renamed in and by Christ who is above the storm. In another poem, “The River”
from Reading God’s Handwriting, the
last stanza reads:
A
congregation of fireflies
Hang
jasper lanterns
On
the levees
For
prayers to read.
Jasper
can refer to the moonlight as well as the walls of heaven. The enjambment and
length of the last two lines visually depicts how prayers reach into the dark
night we all face at some time or another. The last poem in Reading God’s Handwriting is “Heaven”
where
God
greets you
He
speaks only in vowels
He
tells you about
Your
new neighborhood
Infinity
Having a one line, or even one-word, stanza at the
end of the poem opens the words of the poem into the Word who lives in
infinity. Thus the one-Word line here suggests the vastness of an unending life
with God. The Parousia!
Of
course I have been inspired by Biblical language and so many of the poems in Reading God’s Handwriting pick up
directly words whose sacred references energize the poems. I think the two best
examples are the poems “Holiness Is” and “The Catechumens Recite Their
Scrutinies.” Sacramental words like ephods,
ouches, daysman, rare and wonderful, I hope send readers back to the Word
whose revealed truth is Scripture (the act of writing) and whose gift is
Pentecost.
ADDENDUM
Figure
4 Philip Kolin at the University
of Southern Mississippi
Christmas
at St. Simon’s Mission
By Philip Kolin
God’s
love is
Like
the waves of the Gulf,
Waves
followed by waves,
Until
our eyes are washed to see
Them
as endless gifts
Unwrapped
in their scurrying
Explosions
of ribbons and
Crumpled,
frosty papers, bows
And
every name tag ripped off,
No
matter, just the spirit
Celebrates
the day.
The
men on homeless row
Roll
in,
Waves
of smoke, laughing,
Coughing,
chewing tobacco,
Hiding their half pints
calling us
into ritual.
In
torn overcoats, chipped
Teeth
showing.
They
wear smiles in their lapels
And
shift from one foot
To
another,
And
back again,
Rushing
through a sea of syllables
Before
the feast.
Mary's Aviary
By Philip
Kolin
Mary surely
kept birds
Her life is
chronicled
In their
singing--
Doves
wooing at the beginning
Sparrows
tearing afterwards.
Gabriel
brought her more
Than smooth
words soft as dawn
On his
shoulders sat
The glory
of the sky:
An indigo
bunting
Wailing
blues to the Queen.
In Baroque
frescoes
Birds fan
mother and child,
As escadrille of feathers and breezes
Giving the
air color and the earth air.
Throughout
Nazareth flocks
Of lauding
hummingbirds
And
vespering nightingales
Navigated
the prophecies of her life.
The hour
she ascended
Into a
scrim of gentle clouds
The birds
of this world flew into the east
Until they
became like angels
Whose wings
feast on fire.
Genesis
By Philip Kolin
a
word, sanctified darkness hears, the light
shadows
awake into gardens, ripe, fruit
ready,
a man tastes names, wildflowers hum
nature,
a lonely keeper, sleep fulfills
dreams,
a woman’s lips, smiles, questions,
apple
trees everywhere, full of forever, sometimes
a
sudden, raspy breeze, a voice outside a promise
woeful
mouths, naked knowledge, poverty, gates
idols
laugh, generations wander, folly fed with eyes
an
old man’s worried knife, a young boy’s shining neck
covenants
honored, rams, tomorrow’s seeds, and stars,
always
stars
Holiness
Is
By Philip Kolin
dwelling
with God in large places
being
small
going
darkly behind the curtain into
the
Holy of Holies
ephods
of light
anointed
air
the
sweet cinnamon and myrrh of God’s perfume
ouches
of gold and purple linen amidst voices of dust
incense
of fatfleshed heifers & rams
wheat,
the first fruits
men
who gave birth through their knees
ascents
to flaming mountains erupting
eternity
aglow inside a furnace where three men sing
slaving
under a pyramid
fleeing
Egypt, always fleeing, idols and seraph serpents
the
bloody lintels of firstborn shaped into
poles
carrying a carnelian ark embedded with twelve stars,
twelve
tribes
centuries
of wandering, centuries of waiting
Under
the terebinths, welcoming an angel’s call,
a
baby leaping toward the infinite,
a
virgin’s womb fulfilling the ancient prophecies,
pain
and glory
the
radiance of camel-hair shirts in the desert
&
wild-honey prayers
the
Word transfigured in a temple
teaching
on parapets, on Sinai, on the brow of a hill
where
God wept night at noon
feeding
the hungry on unleavened hoarfrost,
on
locusts, on quail, on bread broken in an upstairs room,
panis angelorum
multiplied like those loves and fish,
multiplying
still inside spired tabernacles
lux mundi
the
light of the world in this small pyx.
Lectio Divina
By Philip Kolin
In sapphire light they gather
And are gathered by God
An assembly of cowls
Men hidden inside their souls
So the world cannot peer in
Eyes bright as pearls
They read about Him
In the tiny, curved places
Where God’s ear is closest
His voice clearest
In the serifs, parentheses,
Apostrophes, the calligraphy
Of creation and apocalypse both,
Light and wounds
The one in the other when
The Word enters in silence.
They have become adjectives
Seeking the only noun that counts.
The
Catechumens Recite Their Scrutinies-Poem
By Philip Kolin
I.
We
are parched, Lord,
To
this world of soiled rain
Our
tears turn to dust.
Who
will see them before
They
blow away?
Our
tongues are rudderless
Without
a stream of living words
We
are voiceless voices.
Briars,
nettles, and proud thorns sprout
In
the wilderness of our mouths.
We
have eaten ashes like bread.
Our
brows are barren.
We
write our sins on sandpaper
To
smooth out the dry, rough edges
Of
our conscience.
II.
We
are lost in the dense darkness of self
Confusing
the space of a coffin with
The
size of a galaxy.
Whoever
owns a candle, owns our world
For
a small hour.
But
ours is not a holy darkness.
The
curtained shelter of a cowl or closet.
When
will the stone be rolled
Away
from our eyes? Stripped of light
We
perform a pantomime of perfection.
We
long to wear the livery of your sight.
III.
Be
our daysman.
Fix
the time our exile ends.
Call
us from high gallery or side door,
Or
fom the darkness without.
Let
us stand stripped in bare sackcloth
On
sheepskin in the nave.
Extending
our hands like sore-swept beggars to you
The
hirelings, the prosecutors of mercy.
With
chrism sanctify us between
Our
shoulder blades and on our heads pour
Pure
snow water, the color of grace.
Then
invest us in linen, with dangling red sashes,
So
you can catch us, quick or dead,
Lest
we fall again.
Mary's Covenant
By Philip Kolin
In
Nazareth a young
Milkmaid
so graced
With
a fruitful heart
Said
Yes in a
World
accustomed to no
But
did not
While
she did.
Her
knowledge placed
The
world at the end
Of
God’s love
The
farthest reach
Of
his hand made
Into
earth.
Her
Yes was heard
Across
the centuries
And
the galaxies
It
was the sign above
The
cross of love.
O
Mary conceived
In
the heart of the Father
And
espoused by the Spirit
Cradle
your Son tonight
In
a world aborting life
In
the middle of love.
Before
time started
Its
pace through
The
vale of tears
Mary’s
Yes echoed
The
plans of Architect God’s
Creation.
She is
The
mater for His troweling
Sky,
moon, and sun
The
Father’s favorite Daughter on earth
Carried
a basket
Of
crosses
Laced
with honey
Perfume
and pain.
The
fruit from Mary’s
Garden
filled a universe
With
stars, for Christ, twinkling
The
paths for
Wisemen
and willing virgins
Husbands
who sleep with
Their
wives in Christ
Sarah,
Ruth, Gomer, Elizabeth,
All
wait for—
The
Messiah
She
conceived
In
her basket
Decorated
with
Royal
arcs,
Ribbons
blue.
See
now
Today
Christ
Descending
into
Mary
Christmas.
ADDENDUM II
Seeking the Sacred
Diane
Scharper | DECEMBER 17, 2012
Reading
God's Handwriting: Poems
Philip C. Kolin. Kaufmann. 122p, $16.95
Philip
C. Kolin, author of Reading God’s
Handwriting, and Paul Mariani, of Epitaphs
for the Journey, are Roman Catholic poets who allow their beliefs to infuse
their poetry. They are also intellectuals who avoid the cloying quality found
in some religious verse. Their best poems have a mystical—almost
sacramental—quality and seem reminiscent of works by Gerard Manley Hopkins,
S.J.
In Reading…,
Philip Kolin examines those moments when the divine becomes apparent—to
paraphrase the introduction. Getting inside his subjects, Kolin speaks for them
almost as a medium. He writes in free verse, loading his lines with arresting
metaphors, as in “God’s syllables so sacred/ Greek and Latin need a shawl/ Just
to hold them, vowels,/ subduing the clamor of consonants.” (“Holy Communion”).
Although there are a few poems about contemporary life, most of the book has a
religious context.
Many of the poems achieve their effect
through the use of synesthesia (“a man tastes names,” “Genesis”). Many are also
written as lists that build to a resonating moment. Take “On His Comfort.”
Musing on God’s concern for mankind, the poem is awash in alliteration (a Hopkins
trademark) as it enumerates the ways God has aided his people. The poem’s final
stanza is powerfully evocative: “To Lazarus he says take up your corpse/ And
taste the light. His tears fill twelve/ stone water jars. He raises a daughter/
Coiled in death. Talithacumi, he whispers./ Little one, rise.” The metaphor,
“coiled in death,” seems especially apt.
Editor of Vineyards: A Journal of Christian Poetry, Kolin asks poets to
submit “carefully crafted poetry that is grounded in Christian belief and that
…rises above the expected or clichéd….” He seeks authentic poetry “that
displays the technical mastery and creative fervor” found in highly regarded
secular journals…
Diane
Scharper, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, reviews poetry for Library
Journal and other publications. She is the author of several books including
Radiant: Prayer/Poems (Cathedral Foundation Press).
This excerpt is reprinted by permission of the
author. The full review originally appearsAmerica
Magazine.
ADDENDUM IV
In
a brief phone conversation with the publisher of the work Reading
God’s Handwriting: Poems, Leslie Kaufmann said regarding the poet: He was recommended by author Joseph Pearce,
 |
| Leslie at her desk |
(Thomas More College of Liberal Arts,
Merrimack, New Hampshire) biographer of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He sent me a
glowing letter and a sample of Philip’s work. I found I could not agree with
Joseph more. It was extraordinary.
It is understood that the house of Kaufmann
Publishing is not well-known. The publisher says of this matter: Most people don’t know about the
publishing house. I find hard to mix
promotion and distribution, my weak areas, with producing books. But
I’m working on it.
She
offers regarding her own sense of publishing that hers is a…Roman Catholic list with four priests three
Catholic and one
 |
| House of Kaufmann publishing |
Episcopalian, several teachers/professors. There are ten
poetry books and a few of prose. I started out publishing books in 2005 with a
background in print/design. I’ve had to depend on God for things I’ve needed.
That’s the truth of it. Her own religious life in worship is lived out at St. William Catholic Church in Savannah
Diocese. End of notes of a phone conversation with small publisher.
ADDENDUM III
Initial set of questions asked of the publisher
Leslie Kauffman:
1.
Given
the opportunity to talk with you regarding your publishing house and your work
as a publisher, especially in light of your publishing Philip C. Kolin’s work, Reading God’s Handwriting: Poems, I want to know something about the making of
the decision and reasons for taking on that work. Also, do you find that
Kaufmann Publishing has other similar works, even of a religious kind, that you
want to talk a little bit about?
2.
What
led you to go into the publishing business? It is something of a mystery to
readers to unveil some of the reasons someone cares enough about poetry and
writing, as you must for your house publishes poetry only, to offer books to
readers? Is the fact you are a woman influential in your choices, if you think
so or not? Tell readers something of your own work as a publisher, that is what
you do, and how you generally came to start your house? What keeps you going?
3.
What
of your own background in the literary world. We all believe that publishers
are engaged in a world of ideas, to a greater extent than not. What are some of
the ideas in the books you’ve published and in your own life that move you
most, and keep you going? What do you admire in another house? If someone were
to say, not just in a sound bite, but in more words and ways than that, this is
what Kaufmann Publishing and its list is about, what couple of things might
they say or have observed?
4.
Can
you take a few minutes to speak of anything I may have missed in this area, or
what you want to say in this interview that has been missed? That includes
telling us some about a new work you will offer, or something about publicity
or other tour making the rounds of any work on your list. Even tell us some
more about one or two other of your writers, or of any writer?
This interview appeared originally Church of England Newspaper, London by Peter Menkin. Contact Peter Menkin, pmenkin@att.net .
