For most who live,
hell is never knowing
who they are.
The Singer knew and
knowing was his torment.

Recalling the popularity of  The Singer: A Classic Retelling of Cosmic Conflict by Calvin Miller when I was younger, and having a vaguely positive recollection of reading and enjoying it as a teenager, when I saw it for a dollar at a library sale I snatched it up.  Seeing it as a quick and potentially inspirational read, I read it read it that same week

It is a rather unique book (the first of a trilogy), a sort of poetic narrative – some poetry, prose – that re-imagines the Gospel in the form of a classical myth or fairy tale of a troubadour compelled to sing the song that points man back to their creator.  His opponent is the World Hater who seeks to keep mankind enslaved and unaware of the song.

And even after all these years, it stands up very well. A little forced in places and certainly “artsy” in a sense but with beautiful and evocative language that re-imagines this timeless story in a way that knocks the dust off and allows us to see it fresh.

What struck me most was the way the story could help explore both the universal and simple nature of the Gospel in terms of love and redemption but also how the aphorisms at the start of each chapter were thought provoking and somehow fragile – if you thought about them too much or for too long they fell apart, but if you glanced at them they seemed quite profound.

I also really enjoyed the way the relationships played out.  The emotions involved in how the Singer interacted with God, his mother and the people he encountered really seemed to capture the Christ of the Gospels in a fresh and insightful way. This simple prose poem somehow cleared away the clutter and allows you to see the arc of history and Christ’s sacrificial love as the touchstone of that arc.

To give you a taste, here is an aphorism or poem that introduces a chapter:

Oftentimes Love is
so poorly packaged
that when we have
sold everything to
buy it, we cry in
finding all our
substance gone and
nothing in the tin-
sel and the ribbon.

Hate dresses well
to please a buyer

As noted above, I find this introductions very interesting. There is a sense of the profound about many of them and yet they are hard to nail down and unpack. They sort of hit you on an almost subconscious level.  They give the larger story a philosophical and spiritual weight.

I am sure there are many who might find the poetry to heavy handed or the allegory too thin; a work such as this has a lot to do with taste and style.  I am no expert on poetry or poetic narratives but I found it thought provoking and at times powerful.  Something different and daring even if it doesn’t always succeed.

If you enjoy poetic language and storytelling this is a Christian Classic worth revisiting.

Here is the publisher’s blurb for Mrs. Scrooge: A Christmas Poem by Carol Ann Duffy:

With her husband, Ebenezer, now “doornail dead,” the coldest Christmas Eve on record finds Mrs. Scrooge outside the supermarket, protesting consumerism and waste. “Spoilsport!” shout the passersby as they load up their shopping carts with Christmas goodies. Just as Ebenezer did, Mrs. Scrooge keeps to her frugal ways…but in the present economy, with loads of meaningless material goods bought on credit, maybe Mrs. Scrooge has the right idea.

That night, alone in her bed with Catchit the cat beside her, Mrs. Scrooge is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. As each in succession takes her by the hand and sweeps through the scenes of her life, Mrs. Scrooge learns not only what the “Christmas Spirit” really means, but the nature of the real gifts we give and receive.

The author is most famous for being the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and perhaps it speaks to my literacy that I had not previously heard of her.

I would guess that you will enjoy this poem if when you think turkey you think animal cruelty and when you think North Pole you think of global warming and melting polar ice caps. If you think the commercialism of the holidays are tied to the inherent greed of capitalism.

Politics aside, I am not a poetry critic but from my amateur perspective the verse was well done .  Perhaps, it is my right-wing troglodyte coming out but the story was just a little too stereotypical modern liberal for me.

As touched on above, all the tropes of bohemian leftism are hit on here: animal cruelty, development destroying old neighborhoods, homosexuality, global warming, and general rampant materialism.

It is not that the message – that friends and family is what really matters not things – is objectionable, quite the contrary, it is that it is presented in such a politicized manner.  Or perhaps a culture that assumes a shared politics that isn’t there. This added up to a tone that was almost smug.  Not great for a Christmas story.

But, as I seem to say so often around here: your mileage may vary.

And let’s face it, stories involving poets tend to be hokey or, worse, excruciatingly literary. Maybe the spires of libraries rise darkly in the gloaming; maybe bookish amour unfolds amid bosomy fields laden with the fleeting fruits of summer. At best, the author follows the course Stephen King takes in “The Tommyknockers” and skims over his protagonist’s occupation in order to concentrate on the perilous effects of buried alien spacecraft.

Yet somehow Nicholson Baker has written a novel about poetry that’s actually about poetry — and that is also startlingly perceptive and ardent, both as a work of fiction and as a representation of the kind of thinking that poetry readers do.

I also like this quote about The New Yorker and poetry:

The New Yorker is a terrific magazine, but placing a poem there is like finding a hundred bucks in an old coat pocket: it’s great, but you can’t build your world around it. You build your world around what’s there for you on a daily basis, which for poets, famous or otherwise, means literary journals.

So The Anthologist is moved up a few notched on the towering TBR pile!

Book cover via Amazon

Had he lived, T.S. Eliiot would be 120 on Friday.

With that in mind, allow me to recommend this John J. Miller interview with Benjamin Lockerd on Russell Kirk’s Eliot and His Age.