A Novel Sort of Poetry

I guess it’s not too mysterious. Any activity that engages my hands and/or feet while leaving my mind free can lend itself to literary productivity. Cooking, running, cleaning the bathroom – all have allowed me to practice mental creativity while simultaneously accomplishing a practical task. I guess I just find particular delight in the kinship between getting so “down and dirty” on the outside while ascending the heights of linguistic art on the inside. It’s hard labor either way, and both involve a certain amount of scrabbling ’round in the mud and the roots of things, but . . . at first glance, they are somewhat unexpected bedfellows.

I wrote a lot of poetry – and quite a few songs, blogs, and emails – while mowing the lawn at our North Carolina home. (It’s also a great way to memorize lines, if any of you are theatrically inclined.) Much of my first long narrative poem, “The Witch of Hampstead Heath” (published in the collection Songs in the Gate), was hashed out through multiple trips back and forth across the large backyard.

Almost exactly one year ago – 11 August 2017 – my mowing thoughts took a more sober bent. I had just read an article about the impact of social media on recent generations, and I was both grieved and alarmed at the toll taken by technology – or, rather, by the abuse and misuse of it – on the souls of humankind.

As often happens when I am praying through something weighty, my prayer and meditation began to take poetic shape. Furthermore, as the shape of this work became clear, I began to wonder if the poem might fit in the novel I was about to start writing.