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Commentary
On two or three recent occasions, I have needed the word “extrapolate,” but couldn’t think of it. So, I had to resort to “compensate.” This morning, the word I was seeking popped into my mind, and I was so happy I wrote a poem.
It is said that Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) made lists of related words partly to combat his persistent depression. Which of us hasn’t benefited from the resulting Roget’s Thesaurus? As you can probably guess, he was a brilliant and accomplished man. He also lived a long life. He was deaf by the time he died at age 90. I didn’t know that yet when I attributed my own prayer to him in the title of this poem.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
Yesterday I read an article exploring why lay people often insist that we should not end sentences with prepositions. Linguists say we CAN do so in English, and that the rule came from a wrong-headed attempt to conform English to Latin.
I like French and other Romance languages. But I don’t like silly rules, such as the one that says you can’t end a sentence with a preposition, or that you can’t start a sentence with “but.”
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
Commentary
On my way to church this morning, I was listening to “A Way With Words” on the car radio. One caller was asking about the interjections “Say!” and “Hey!” It dawned on me that my imagination has always shut down when someone says “Hay is for horses.” In my mind’s eye, I spelled out the homonyms: “hay” and “hey.” That’s when this poem was born.
(background image based on one by “12019” on Pixabay… with a little generative fill behind the horse)
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)
To Be Published
I could become inscrutable, I suppose… Disclose despair By ripping off The clothes of grammar I have warmly worn Since I could dress myself.
A fugitive in Philistines’ Protection, I could let the spittle Punctuate my unkempt beard, ’Til readers feel They’re not alone As long they may have feared.
But what’s the point In publishing Some other poets’ lives? Better just to be My properly appointed, Boring self, A prude in others’ eyes.
— Brad Hepp, 12/29/2023
Commentary
I force myself to read poems that I don’t understand. It seems I’d need a decoding key to cipher why poets sometimes mangle grammar, and why they choose really odd line breaks.
I read these poems and don’t understand them at all, despite having been an English major, and despite having done almost seven years of graduate work after college. The poems make me feel stupid, and inadequate.
Maybe I should stop worrying about it, and concentrate on what God means for ME to do!
UPDATE What I’m grumbling about here is my sense that poetry seems to be honored in some circles only insofar as it obfuscates or even DENIES meaning. If you read the following short article about “Postmodernism Poetry,” you’ll recognize what bothers me. You may also be comforted—as I am—that it’s not that *WE* aren’t smart enough to understand those bizarre so-called poems, but that the POETS have abandoned reason. They really don’t think there’s anything TO be understood.
(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary)
Commentary
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I listen to Anne Curzan’s The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins. This observation about capitalization is inspired by one of Curzan’s entertaining lectures. In talking about capitalization rules, she confesses that she has never figured out a good reason why “I” is the only pronoun that we routinely capitalize.
Linguists “keep it real” when it comes to language.
Nounish you may think yourself. Verbose you’re meant to be.
In fullness of Imago Dei, A mystery:
Don’t you see? You speak, And so, thereby, Does HE.
And when thereby He speaks, So, thereby DOES He.
NOTES: I imagine a time — when time began — when nouns were not mere nouns. That was long before anyone thought it necessary or even logical that “actions speak louder than words.” That divorce came later.
What’s implied by the phrase “God IS love?” Indirectly, this poem explores that concept.
March 11, 2019 rumination: On Sunday, I had to do the scripture reading: John 14:8-14. One verse was difficult to read: “10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” See that odd juxtaposition? “words I say / Father… doing his work.” Reading this, I couldn’t help but think of the odd last two stanzas of my poem. God does/works through the Son’s speaking. In verse twelve Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Two verses later, Jesus promises, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” The Father’s doing, Jesus’ doing, our doing all get jumbled up. And the doing is related to saying/asking in unusual ways. I HAVE NOT GOTTEN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS.
The photograph used in the featured image (shown below, but mainly for social media) was taken by Dimitris Vetsikas, of Cyprus. He generously posted the photograph on Pixabay.
