Grace is simple

I shelved a book at the library today whose title caught my eye. It is called The Pure Inconstancy of Grace. It’s a book of poems by Richard St. John. Something about this title wrenched at my heart immediately, as did the title’s coupling with the name of the author—St. John. I felt innately that this author might have some special authority concerning the text of such a book—that he would have something special to say, much like St. John the Baptist. I opened the book and skimmed through the list of poem titles, my excitement growing. Just about all the titles indicated a graceful and spiritual focus—titles such as “Praying in the Dark, Age 50”, “A Baptism”, “The Way the Spheres Must Move”, “The Sainthood of St. Julian”, and “From the Plate”. These titles jumped out at me as truly important. Maybe they were just tapping into my Catholic upbringing, and recent-years’ loneliness and jumbled lifestyle. I don’t know, but I began reading the book as I pushed my cart through the aisles, re-shelving all the other books. I was slow and clumsy, but could not help it because I was glued!

I haven’t read something that was truly this inviting and, well, good in awhile, even considering the extreme volume of written work I’ve been digesting. Here’s the thing that I think made this experience different and so enjoyable: I was reading something that beckoned me and that opened all the doors of communication so that I did not have to trip over anything. Simply, St. John’s work is accessible! And yet, wonderful at the same time. I’ve started to feel like, especially in contemporary literature, that poetry is more appreciated the more it does something new and probably mysterious. A lot of postmodern literature is fragmented and the format, too, can leave the reader a bit mystified as to how he or she is supposed to read it. Really, it just takes a whole lot of thought and work on the part of the reader to engage. To me, this is not necessarily the best literature—literature that demands too much of the reader, rendering the experience possibly frustrating or exhausting. Literature, to me, is very much about communicating something well, and it takes two to communicate-a speaker and a hearer. One who has ears to hear. I mean that so much, I approach a poem and don’t even know where to begin to read it—often literally, and more often in terms of it meaning. St. John’s work was refreshing in this sense.
Now, the danger here in writing in a clearer, sometimes even prose-like style in St. John’ case, is that the work becomes too simple and the art diminished. These two things do not have to go hand-in-hand, however. The images and thoughts presented are illuminated even more to me because I know how to approach them. I don’t feel frustrated by dead-ends, or the fragments of thoughts and images and whims that seem to want to tell me something, but that stop walking towards me half way across the bridge. St. John still gives the reader plenty of walking to do…across the bridge (I suppose that’s the metaphor I’m using for engagement with the text?)…but he thoughtfully and gracefully illuminates the path. He does this just by writing in a code all of us readers understand. It is simple sentences and word structure! So, it is not his form that is so incredibly clever, but the ideas and substance being communicated, so thoughtfully revealed. He makes spiritual references in almost every poem, moving in a graceful way, and weaving through references to art, music, and nature. Allow me to give some examples of his work and perhaps you can see for yourself what I mean that this work is truly graceful—approachable, structured, meaningful, and very beautiful.

--favorite lines from “A Largo”:
“A little like the face of God, we can’t look
at music directly. And so, the woman in the yard
of her apartment block cannot explain
why she is moved so by the largo of the maple seeds
spilling from the high branches, the sun
through the leaves, scattering gold florins
across the rusty wrought iron table.”
…
“Near sixty now, she’s sitting at a table in the sun.
It’s not that everything has come right in the end.
She still awakes at night, looking for lost friend
among a maze of charred foundation stones. And yet,
if God’s withdrawn, he must have left behind
at least the space and form of music. …”

Do you see already how it is not the form that is so artist, but the content?

In some places, the work gets extremely prose-like, but that maintains an intense poetic power and is not in need of any overly-smart poetic dress-up. For instance, in “A Baptism”, he says at the beginning:

“Some accounts say the sky ‘tore open.’ But in Verrocchio’s Baptism
we get only these ridiculous, disembodied hands,
releasing a stylized, downward-pointing dove. It’s said
that Verraccio abandoned painting altogether when he saw
how leonardo’s angel, detailed as apprentice-work
in the foreground, outshone his. Still, it’s Verraccio’s angel
that attracts me…”

He goes on to link this to a scene at a maternity ward, all the babies, even the sickly, like angels. St. John’s material is genuine and so does not need any fancy formatting to be special. In fact, to me it may be even more special because I sense the thoughtful and beautiful intention and experience of the author in much of the work. It is not distant from the author or from the earth, or spirit. This is truly good poetry. No tricks or gimmicks, no clever elusions, just simple and graceful presentation. Thanks, St. John!