Secular Prayers

Carol Ann Duffy was announced as the new Poet Laureate this month, to replace Andrew Motion after he had completed his ten years in office. Apparently he has suffered writer’s block for four of those, because of the pressure to gush forth on such uninspiring pretexts as a royal wedding. Nonetheless, he does not regret accepting the post and believes it has given him the opportunity to raise the profile of poetry in the public eye. Duffy is a Laureate for our time one suspects. She is the first woman to be appointed since the post began over three hundred years ago, and her openly gay stance may perhaps make a few folk sit up and listen just to see if she has anything shocking to say. I have not read enough of her work to ascertain her religious sensibilities, but I was interested to hear her state that poems were ‘secular prayers’ in a recent interview. Indeed she wrote a deeply contemplative sonnet in 1993 called ‘Prayer,’ which was part of a collection based around the theme of ending a relationship. I came across it some while ago and, like all great verse, it went straight to the heart.

PRAYER

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

The poem has a music which takes you beyond the logical mind, just as the most potent prayers are able to do. It has the small but perfectly formed frame of a sonnet, and a simple, almost child-like rhyme scheme which gives it a gentle liturgical lilt. Indeed ‘pray for us now’ is a fragment from a well known Catholic prayer to Mary, and even the place names of the shipping forecast in the final line are made to sound like a solemn chant from the divine offices of night. Moreover the poem itself illuminates the litany of sounds which weave in and out of our conscious mind through the course of each day calling us to prayer. There is ‘the distant Latin chanting of a train,’ the ‘Grade I piano scales,’ the calling for a child and ‘the radio’s prayer’ reaching into the lonely rain swept islands. Even the trees may sing to us when we most need their consolation. Whether intentionally or not, Carol Ann Duffy has celebrated the ceaseless prayer which ripples from the centre of everyday life. It ‘utters itself’ as a ‘sudden gift’ and consoles ‘the lodger looking out across a Midland town.’ These ‘prayers’ somehow illuminate the ‘darkness’ for the characters in the poem. This darkness is experienced as sorrow, regret, and loneliness and it is this, which prevents them from praying in the first place. Perhaps she calls this and other poems secular prayers, because they capture the experience of people finding faith or hope or comfort from within the ordinary rather than sacred spheres of existence; or perhaps because Carol Ann Duffy does not share a particular religious persuasion. Either way, this brilliant and worthy poet Laureate has understood more than most, that the essence of prayer is not so much something we choose to do, but it is rather received unexpectedly as a ‘sudden gift.’ May she speak to the heart of our nation in these dark days of recession.

Open Space

‘There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost….the world will not have it.’ The brilliant American choreographer Martha Graham spoke these profoundly challenging words to her dance students in the last century, but I found them apt for the first workshop of a new arts programme I began at my local church at the start of May. Open Space offers adults from all faiths and backgrounds a creative workshop in the arts each month as a means of unlocking the deep spiritual treasures which are hidden within the depths of every soul. God, by any definition is essentially creative, and since Christians understand humanity to be made in this image, we are perhaps closest to the divine when we are exercising our innate artistic gifts. The problem, as Graham’s words emphasize, is that we are inclined to ‘block’ our own creativity. The reasons for this are manifold and complex, but they certainly have something to do with a lack of self-belief or a paralysing self-consciousness, which inhibits the sort of free-flowing energy and spontaneity that is at the heart of inspirational art in any field. For this first workshop, I chose to lead the group in some creative writing. I did not tell them this before hand, as this would have given them the opportunity to block their creativity by not showing up at all! We began by looking at the above quote, and at some key lines from Robert Alter’s beautiful translation of Psalm 139. This ‘David psalm’ evokes God’s sensitive sculpting of our unique individual life with the words, ‘From behind and in front You shaped me /and You set your palm upon me…..You created my innermost parts, / wove me in my mother’s womb.’ How deeply affirming are both the psalmist’s and Martha Graham’s words for the would-be artist who wonders whether they have anything unique to offer. We continued the session by slowly tuning into the descending silence of the space around us and within us, identifying the clutter of thoughts and feelings strewn across our interior landscape from the busyness of the day. Each person then listened to and wrote down five sounds they could hear. Having done this they wrote a paragraph about what things they associated with those different sounds. Afterwards each person read back one of their paragraphs to the group. Inevitably the sounds were similar; ticking clocks, bird song, squeaky doors, but of course the various responses were idiosyncratic, revealing the unique histories and personalities of the group. One lady coined a beautiful phrase about the choral evensong of the birds who sang ‘arias in branches,’ whilst a more prosaic and witty soul observed the need for DW40 to ease a squeaky door. However, it’s also significant how we find it hard to share our work without wanting to explain ourselves in some way. It’s a way of protecting ourselves from the savage critics we imagine hovering somewhere in the room waiting to rip us to shreds. Where does that come from? I can’t believe we have all had monstrous parents or teachers who condemned our first artistic efforts out of hand. Yet, somehow we have internalized such negative and destructive voices. I was aware, too. of my own impulse as the facilitator to pass comment on people’s work, so for the next exercise I suggested that we all bit our tongues rather than comment on our or other’s efforts just for the sake of filling the silence.

For this, I gave each member of the group five random topics; garden furniture, Marilyn Monroe, eagles, the earth’s core and fireworks. I instructed them to write freely and spontaneously for about five minutes (roughly one side of A4) on each subject. Of course this seemed more like an exam, and all the anxieties about being able to find anything to say crowded in, causing nervous giggles to ripple around the table. Eventually that concentrated stillness was felt by all. As I was the facilitator, I had the chance to observe the beauty of people writing as their ideas spilled out onto the paper with that disarming eagerness to do their very best.

So we again heard one topic from each of the dozen participants, but this time without the throat-clearing pre-ambles. One man, a builder, read out his response to garden furniture, which was a cleverly shaped narrative written from the perspective of a garden bench circling an old tree. It reflected on the various characters in the neighbourhood who had sat and gossiped there. After we had all finished reading our passages, John confessed he had felt a bit out of his depth when he had begun the session. We counteracted this by heaping praise on such a fine piece of writing. His inspiration had come from just such a garden seat he’d admired while working on someone’s home, and this had sparked his imagination in the writing workshop this evening.

At the end of the workshop, we considered the notion of a writer ‘finding their voice,’ as an apt metaphor for our journey of faith. When we first begin to explore our spirituality, or follow a religion, we are inclined to fall into clichés just like a novice writer. We have an idea of what a Christian, for example, is supposed to be, and thus try to adopt the appropriate behaviour. This is perhaps an understandable starting point, but becomes disastrous if we get stuck in this groove. There comes a time when we have to discover our unique voice and signature as a saint. This may take a life-time to evolve, but the sooner we move away from the rigid stereo-types of the religious life, the sooner we will find that ‘unique expression,’ which Martha Graham sought from her dancers. Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, and Shakespeare were all one offs! So should we be, regardless of our religious persuasion or artistic talent..

The Land

The start of May has brought brilliant sunshine and the usual accompanying fervour to most of England this year. Under-graduates at Oxford risked life and limb on May 1st by jumping off Magdalen Bridge into just a few feet of water, despite the presence of the police. Here in Sussex I reluctantly ventured outdoors to confront the jungle that was once our garden. Thickets of grass had grown up through the cracks in the patio paving, the lavateria had climbed half way across the weed ridden, unkempt lawn, and the out of control conifers were invading the table and parasol at the far end, deterring us from the joy of dining alfresco. Even the delicate cherry blossom and scarlet Rhododendron bush that had briefly blossomed at the end of April, had begun to shed their petals in protest at my appalling neglect of nature. However, it’s gratifying how much progress can be made with the weather on your side, and since ours is only a small plot of land, I had managed to restore at least some apparent order to the garden in just a few days.

Thus, with a glow of achievement to match my weathered face, I drove my friend Simon down to the delightful Hamlet of Bignor on the edge of the South Downs, to see a dramatization of Vita Sackville-West’s epic poem, ‘The Land.’ I had never been to Bignor before, but an early sunlit evening in May was the perfect time to make its acquaintance. In the centre of the village is Holy Cross Church where the performance was taking place. An enterprising warden has developed a marvellous year-round programme of arts events at this glorious thirteenth century Church, and it was evident as we searched for a parking space in the narrow lane leading up to Holy Cross that he has made a great success of this venture. There were clusters of candles and lanterns, and an inviting bar near the church entrance where an interesting mix of the well-heeled, together with more rustic or certainly elderly folk had assembled for the performance.
‘The Land’ was the poem which Vita Sackville-West hoped the literati to remember her by. She toiled away at it between 1923-1926, with the patience and tenacity of the farmers she described in its pages,. This epic verse, around 2,500 lines long, dramatizes the encounter between man and the soil, most particularly her beloved Weald of Kent, through the seasons of the year. It is one the one hand broodingly unsentimental, acknowledging the intense conflict between the two, yet it is also charged with her infectious wonder at the beauty which emerges from the struggle:

“ The country habit has me by the heart.
He is bewitched forever who has seen
Not with his eyes but with his vision, spring,
Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun”

‘The Land’ has been very cleverly adapted and performed by Tim Laycock, an excellent actor and folk musician with a fine tenor voice, and Sonia Ritter an actress who has played weighty Shakespearean roles at theatres like the Globe in London. She recited long sections of the poem with magnificent intensity, as if to suggest the sheer thrill of the poet when originally penning her lines of verse all those years ago. Tim Laycock skilfully brought to life a wide range of farmers and rural craftsmen celebrated in the poem, such as the Thatcher. In this adaptation, the rich sensuality of the poetry was punctuated by rustic folk songs, with which many of the elderly in the audience joined in, making the performance feel like a communal ritual of remembrance for a way of life that, alas, has gone for ever. In the interval Simon and I sipped our wine looking over toward the Downs in the fading light. Our enterprising warden was lighting the gas flares which lined the path from the church gate to the porch. I remarked to Simon that it felt as if I’d hardly be born at all, after hearing the extraordinary litany of flowers celebrated in ‘The Land.’ Having been a Londoner for the first thirty years of life, it struck me how we need to be initiated into a deep bond with the land and nature, preferably in our early years. Parents, teachers on extended field trips, and perhaps in this case the nature poet herself, may begin this rite of passage, but we must ultimately ‘grasp the nettle’ ourselves. I’m not sure that I have, as yet. Even now, I am uneasy passing a horse on a country walk, and the trees and flowers of the fields seem like distant relations at best.
In spite of the dour reluctance of the soil to yield to cultivation, there is a sense in ‘The Land’ of a deep, mysterious collaboration between man and nature to unearth the Divine treasure that sustains and enriches life. I was interested to read that Vita Sackville-West had ‘no formal religion,’. I’m not sure the Church would know quite what to make of her affairs with other women, even now. Nonetheless, her poem seems profoundly spiritual, and she certainly uses Christian imagery in places. Her celebration of the turning year has a liturgical feel about it, and the poem has clearly grown from a deep meditation on what is, after all, one of the seven sacraments of the Church. I sense that we must seek to understand nature more and more as we get older, if we are to unlock the mysteries of the Spirit. As Jesus says to Nicodemus when he fails to comprehend the notion of spiritual rebirth in the Gospel of John, ‘I have spoken to you of earthly things, and still you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’ Moreover, reading the parables of Christ in the Gospels, reveals how deeply Jesus reflected on the cycles of nature and the work of the farmer, in order to make sense of the mystery of being. His is a spirituality, like Vita’s, rooted in the land. In one of his stories Jesus speaks of a farmer’s seed choked by thistles, and snatched away by the birds. When he later expounded the parable, it was clear that the soil represented the soul of mankind, and the seed the Word of God. Jesus, a son of the land, understood like the poet, the struggle to cultivate beauty from stubborn nature.
So back to my garden, to turn the heavy soil, which stares darkly up at me from the flower-beds, and to re-seed the patchy lawn, with its spreading moss and stubborn weeds. It’s never too late to begin, as they say. It’s never too late.