A Place Apart Discussion Blog

This weekend saw the launch of the A Place Apart Discussion Blog, which will feature

conversations with those who have some connection to A Place Apart (http://apartvermont.org/), whether you have attended a training retreat, are participating in a small discussion or action group in your area incorporating the concepts of A Place Apart, or simply share the yearning to be fully alive in the way that Jesus Christ presents to us in the gospels and in our daily lives together.

Check it out, and leave your comments to join the conversation.

Caedmon, the first English poet

Do you know the story of the first poet in the English language?
It's a lovely story told in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, maybe a factually correct story and maybe not, but certainly true in the sense we are talking about. Caedmon was an illiterate cowherd who worked at a monastery. In the evening in the refectory, when the monks and workers sat down to supper, they would pass a stringed instrument, a harp that was a kind of precursor to the guitar, around the table. And everybody would pluck a few chords and sing or recite some verses. And, seeing the harp coming his way, Caedmon would always sneak off, tiptoeing out to the barn where he slept in the hay with the farm animals all around. Caedmon was all thumbs when it came to playing the harp, and he didn't know any verses.
One night he was sound asleep in the barn when an angel appeared out of the cloudy nowhere angels come from and woke him. Caedmon was dazed in humility and awe and fear.

"Caedmon," the angel said. "Sing for me."

As politely as possible, Caedmon reminded the angel of what the supernatural being must already know-that he couldn't sing a note and didn't know any verses and that was why he was here, alone in the barn, while the supper's evening festivities were still going on.

The angel wasn't having any. "Nevertheless you will sing for me." "What shall I sing?"

"Sing me the story of the Creation."

And, as if by miracle, words came into Caedmon's head and he sang (or recited) a little poem about the creation of the world. Look it up sometime, the earliest known poem in the English language, therefore the earliest official poet in the English language.

Garrett, George. “Going to See the Elephant: Our Duty as Storytellers.” Creating Fiction. (Cincinnati: Story Press, 1999), 3.

Living poetic lives

I seek to build a family of good people who desire to lift the veil of life's frustration and fear through the experience of poetic living and creative spiritualities. Old Guard and Gatekeepers need not apply.

At least that's what I wrote under "Who I'd like to meet" on my Myspace page just the other day. This is what I aim for, and I am still trying to figure out how to do it. I am also attempting to step into the world more intentionally as a poet, and a creative spirit overall, to bust down the walls that stand between you and me, and between us and God. I'm hesitant at times to talk about God because I don't want to be pushy. I intend to be invitational, for that is the only way that we can walk and work together in the fullness of our humanity. As I wrote in "Initiation," a new poem from last week: "All of us need, not magnets in our pockets, but empty, wide spaces." And so I invite all of us to imagine together fresh ways of engaging the world that brings us together in the spirit of creative living for a new tomorrow. Poetry is one way. What are others? I welcome your comments.

UPDATE 10 May 2007: Poets, artists, singers, visionaries, clergy, students, young and old who share this vision and wish to network in whatever ways emerge, contact me and let me know what you're up to and what you dream of stepping into. The world is waiting.

William Stafford Annotated Webliography

I just began a new project, the William Stafford Annotated Webliography, a bibliography but restricted to web content, of which there is actually quite a bit. Here is the intro:

This webliography is a continual project that I add to as I am able. I began on May 2, 2007, and will continue to add and revise content until all that I perceive as critical for the reader of William Stafford to engage has been included. I have elected to review only online material at this point since a search of most bookseller websites will provide access to the works of Stafford that are available for sale; online content is freely available to all, scholar and leisurely reader alike. While I approach Stafford as a scholar, I began to study his work because I came to appreciate his work as a lover and writer of poetry. I aim to include a balance of resources between that appropriate for study and that good for enjoyment.

You can access the webliography at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddtjdcn3_116g55z4x

Reposted from Encountering William Stafford: Annotated Webliography.