From the Bench at the Bend in the Trail
POSTED BY Andrew Peterson
WORDS: A Poem
Remember: each word is a mystery,
A thing to be handled like fire or love.
Tramp like a fool through the whispering wood
And you’ll never lay eyes on the singer.
Carefully, carefully, stand back and wait.
Watch where the word goes, behold how it moves:
Its nuance and hue, its contour and weight–
It flits like a finch, just over the page.
Only at last, when it trusts you enough,
It alights and allows you to write it.
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A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Were you aware that you have a gift with words? Thank you for that gift this morning. D
For some reason, this poem reminds me of your song, “Let There Be Light”. Love both!
((sigh.))
So good, I’ve been standing still waiting for finches… Thanks for reminding me that I need to be more still, more patient..
Nice metaphor. Now if only more of those words would alight on my branches.
Oh my. That went straight into my heart and made my eyes watery.
a taste of perfection…
AP, I came upon this Lewis quote and thought of you:
“I think the only hope for poetry now lies in lowering [the poet's] status. Unless he speedily returns to the workmanlike humility of his great predecessors and submits to the necessity of interesting and pleasing as a preliminary to doing anything else, the art of poetry will disappear from among us altogether.”
Your “workmanlike humility” when you write is inspiring. Thanks for this.
AP, it is my policy not to like poems or stories about writing (or songs about songwriting or movies about moviemaking). I’ve decided, however, to make an exception in this case. This is a good poem. (I also made an exception for Gullahorn’s “Simple Man”).
Talk to us about the meter: there are 10 syllables per line, but it’s not iambic pentameter. Four (sometimes three) beats per line, which makes the poetry flit like a finch.
How did you get so clever? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way; I actually want you to explain to the Rabbit Room readers how you got so clever.
“It alights and allows you to write it” This leaves me breathless.
Thanks for reminding me to write with “workmanlike humility” (ah, thanks, Ron, for quoting CS Lewis). To think, with words God planted forests and set the heavenly bodies in space. Somehow He trusts me with those words, which I can only borrow to make things that hopefully reflect my Creator.
Andrew, this is good stuff. Have you written much (non-musically-intended) poetry?
Thanks for the kind words, folks.
In answer to Jonathan’s and Alex’s questions, I’ve posted a handful of poems here in the RR over the last couple of years, and I have a dozen or so scribbled in my journal. Poetry used to mystify me. It wasn’t until I was exposed to Billy Collins and Wendell Berry’s poetry that I began to pay attention. Their poems strike me as unpretentious: beautiful and deep without requiring the reader to have a masters in renaissance verse.
As for being clever, I’m not telling. I can’t divulge my secrets, or we’d have a bunch of clever folks running around willy nilly, and that isn’t an option. But seriously. All I can say is that this is the third draft of the poem. The first was written at the bench in the bend in the trail, in my journal. The second was written a few weeks later when I transcribed it to my computer. Before I posted it for public consumption I revised it further. It wasn’t until the last draft that the finch fluttered into the poem. And when I read it aloud to myself (a requirement), I noticed a few problems with the beats. It was written in 10-syllable lines, but the beats were sloppy and didn’t feel right coming out of my mouth.
For example: “Its nuance and hue, its contour and weight” was originally “Its hue, its nuance, its tone, and its weight”. The first feels better. I hardly know why. It also looks better, come to think of it.
The last thing I’ll say is that I wrote this poem on November 9th, 2009. I was on the verge of a Christmas tour and knew that on January 18 I was leaving with the Captains Courageous to make the new album. I had a lot of songs to write and/or finish, and I felt pressure. The poem was written to remind myself that songs shouldn’t be trapped, bagged and shot. They’re more like living things that inhabit the woods and will only come to you if you’re patient and your intentions are good.
Andrew, Thanks for responding to the Qs.
Re: “songs shouldn’t be trapped, bagged and shot. They’re more like living things that inhabit the woods and will only come to you if you’re patient and your intentions are good.” … That also holds for preparing a sermon or a Bible study. I pray hard for the transcendent to come through, for the presence of God the Holy Spirit to settle down in our little cement brick razor wire encircled rooms, into the hearts of our men and women. I feel like a mama bird, working to supply semi-digested food for those in her care. And then I throw in a song w/ words and scripture references, often one of yours. You have a new crop of fans here, btw.
The poem itself touched my heart w/ God’s presence in the same way. Thanks.
WOW! What a gift God has given you and I’m thankful you share it with us!
Lovely poem.
A bit off topic, but related: Please would you and your readers consider contributing a list of your 10 favorite poems to my poem survey? Read more about it here: http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=9520