Writing “Unpoetry“

It’s simple. It’s succinct. It’s honest. It’s random. It’s crazy. It’s different. It’s me. I’ve written and still do write straight ahead poetry, but I’m not that interested in writing it that often. I want to create a new form. Something to make people think. Something interesting. Something that comes out of nowhere and knocks people off their little step stool. I think sensical poetry has an important place and time, but that’s just not what I usually like to write. I think in poetry, it’s not advertising, so the writer doesn’t have to appeal or go to the reader. The reader stretches their self to appreciate what the poet is trying to do or communicate. And the communication may not be direct. It may be artistic, it may be creative. It may be only understood as a whole, not meant to be dissected line by line and picked apart. Then again, there is always room for analysis, but that’s just not the goal of the poetry. Rather, it is to just enjoy reading it, just for pleasure. That’s what I try to do.

Bible Stories, True or False?

Bible stories are an enigma. Some of them are so intimate, private and personal. Some of them are so extraordinary, hard to believe, supernatural. So many are so alien to life as we know it. And who could have originally accounted for each story? When John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb upon a visit from Jesus’ mother Mary, who recorded that story to be passed on for centuries? When Moses encountered the burning bush, when the Hebrews followed a pillar of fire and smoke, when a touch of Jesus’ robe healed a bleeding woman, who wrote down these things? Who told the story to others? So private, so personal. So hard to believe that they came to be part of a book that we read. I don’t think Jesus told these stories. Was it a disciple? An apostle? Who passed it on? Did leaders in the first churches started by Paul tell these stories in church? Before there was a written record from the Catholic Church? So many questions, so many unanswered doubts. The Bible stories are so foreign to life as we know it today. How could they have really happened? Isn’t it more likely that they were made up to enhance the power of the church over its followers? And the synagogue over its faithful people? Other religions have stories that we assume are just literature made up by followers of a religion to give power to their leaders. Why don’t Christians believe the same thing about their own religious books? Is it too terrifying to consider that these stories could be false, made up, simply literature to build up a myth?