Swifties

In a recent article in the WSJ, the writer Adam Kirsch reviews Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department. Kirsch edits the WSJ Review, and is himself the author of four books of poetry. Dylan Thomas is the only poet referred to by name by Swift. Kirsch writes – In the title song, she tells an unnamed lover: “You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith/This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots.” Dylan died at age 39, in the Chelsea Hotel in 1953, from alcoholism! The way Dylan destroyed himself encourages the idea that poets are set apart from normal life and being a poet is often likened to madness. Shakespeare in Midsummer Night’s Dream wrote “the lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact.” There are just too many tortured poets to count or name! Such creative genius seems to sit close to madness! Tortured American poets such as Plath, Sexton, and Lowell, each write openly about their experience of mania, depression and addiction. Swift in the first song of her album hints at a kind of hospitalization Lowell wrote about: “I was supposed to be sent away/But they forgot to come and get me.” Kirsch writes “But Taylor Swift is synonymous with success-with wealth and fame and good looks -and listeners know that, however dramatic the lyrics, her struggles always end in triumph. She sings “I cry a lot, but I am so productive, it’s an art/You know you’re good when you can even do it with a broken heart.” Kirsch concludes “Perhaps the difference between a pop star and a genuine poet is that the former is only playing a role, while the latter has to go on being tortured whether they like it or not.” In honor of Dylan Thomas I share two of his poems. Pause and ponder his choice of words, use of images and the implied multi meanings. Enjoy!

The almanac of time
The almanac of time, hangs in the brain;
The seasons numbered, by the inward sun,
The winter years, move in the pit of man;
His graph is measured as the page of pain
Shifts to the redwombed pen.

The calendar of age hangs in the heart,
A lover’s thought tears down the dated sheet,
The inch of time’s protracted to a foot
By youth and age, the mortal state and thought
Ageing both day and night.

The word of time lies on the chaptered bone,
The seed of time is sheltered in the loin:
The grains of life must seethe beneath the sun,
The syllables be said and said again:
Time shall belong to man

This bread I break
This bread I break was once the oat
This wine upon a foreign tree
Plunged in its fruit;
Man in the day or wind at night
Laid the crops low, broke the grape’s joy.

Once in this wine the summer blood
Knocked in the flesh that decked the vine,
Once in this bread
The oat was merry in the wind;
Man broke the sun, pulled the wind down.

This flesh you break, this blood you let
Make desolation in the vein,
Were oat and grape
Born of the sensual root and sap;
My wine you drink, my bread you snap.

Prayer:
Holy, Creator God,
you spoke creation into being,
your breath and voice brought about
life and love.
Language has such power and ability,
to build life and love, or to destroy.
Forgive us when our words
hurt rather than heal,
lie rather than love,
demand rather than delight.
Holy God remind us that at times
we would do better to listen than speak,
and in our listening might our souls and heart
hear the “still small voice” of you Creator, Loving,
and Forgiving God.
Come to our aid when our minds and hearts are
somewhat tortured and lead us through our inner
darkness into your broad and bright Light
of love, grace and mercy.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God. And the Word became
flesh and lived among us…full of grace and truth. Amen.