Poetry

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Almost all enjoy poetry, but, I never have. Last fall I made a decision to understand Poetry. I frankly hadn’t understood or cared about poetry in my life. I found it hard to “get”, and unapproachable. So, I bought “Poetry for Dummies” and started there. It has been a fantastic read! I have found I enjoy poetry much more than I expected, and have learned quite a few things that have had direct benefit on my life. But the thing that has stuck with me above the others, these last 6 months or so, has been the definition of “poetry” that I found in there.

Definition of Poetry in “Poetry for Dummies” is: The ability to read from words more than what the words may literally say.

I’m going to illustrate this with a poem by the Japanese master poet Kobyashi Issa,

Morning:
one deer licks
snow from the
other’s coat

This poem is not only a description of the interaction of two animals. It’s the transference of the idea and feeling of spring, newness, kinship, and recovery, a delicate and sweet image of two creatures caring for each other in the wild, while still dealing with the harshness of cold. It’s a masterful collection of so very few words saying so much.

I’ve been thinking that God’s message for us is the same. God’s message for the earth is large, beautiful, powerful, magnificent, all encompassing. In that previous sentence alone I’m making the point that God’s message is too large for words. In a sense, His love to us is poetry.

It is ideas that cannot be entirely transferred in words alone.

God’s salvation offered to us through the life and death of His son Jesus, is a gift too large for words.

God communicates this to us throughout the Bible, that to understand Him, we often need to understand more than what is literally being said. Poetry speaks in more than just words. God speaks in more than just words.

I want to explore how Poetry accomplishes this, being “larger than what the words say”. And, we will find the Lord communicates in the same ways. In studying poetry, I have learned that the Bible has a ton of poetic styles.

We’ll look at this similarity in three ways:

• Poetry is deliberate
• Poetry is contextual
• Poetry is emotional

Three concepts that are used or demonstrated in Poetry that God also uses with us. Poetry is deliberate

Even though God’s message is poetic, as I’m saying, I am not saying it is unclear. I think God is so very deliberately clear.

One passage by Paul shows this: “… the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom 10:8-9).

So very specific on how we are to be saved. But in this clarity, we’re left with much to respond to and think on. Verses as direct as this leave an impression larger than the words themselves.

Often, we do not recognize the poetry in the Bible as such: it certainly has neither rhyme nor rhythm, even in the Hebrew. However, Hebrew Poetry has many forms, the most interesting being Parallelism and the Acrostic form. The RSV in particular recognizes Hebrew Poetry forms: the Song of Moses in Exodus 15 is an excellent example. Note in particular verse 4, where the same idea is expressed twice in the two lines.

1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying, I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

2 The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

3 The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name.

4 “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea; and his picked officers are sunk in the Red Sea.

5 The floods cover them;

they went down into the depths like a stone.

6 Thy right hand, O LORD, glorious in power,
thy right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.

7 In the greatness of thy majesty thou overthrowest thy adversaries;

thou sendest forth thy fury, it consumes them like stubble.

8 At the blast of thy nostrils the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap;

the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea” (Exod 15:1–8 RSV).

Psalm 119, on the other hand, is an acrostic poem, recognized as an amazing poem in its intricacy. 176 verses where 8 words (Word, Law, Testimonies, Ways, Precepts, Statutes, Commandments, Rules) essentially meaning the same thing, are used repeatedly in many ways. A very technically stunning poem, even recognized in poetry for Dummies. It is an example of an alphabetical or acrostic psalm, where the first section or line begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the next with the second, and so on, until all the letters of the alphabet have been used. Thus, Psalm 119 consists of 22 groups of eight verses each. The number of groups equals the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The first letter of each verse in a group is (in the original Hebrew text) that letter of the alphabet which corresponds numerically to the group. The NET Bible shows this clearly:

“X (Alef) How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, who obey the law of the LORD” (Psa 119:1).

“ב (Bet) How can a young person maintain a pure life? By guarding it according to your instructions!” (Psa 119:9).

“I (Gimel) Be kind to your servant! Then I will live and keep your instructions” (Psa 119:17).

This deliberate style shows us that, even with a great amount of verses and words, there is no wasted words. God is direct and specific. He does not waste words. The English Bible as we have it in the KJV is normally written as prose (which just means any written word without metric or structure), but still it is a clearly designed message.

We have the famous memory verse: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” (2Tim 3:16). Poetry is the same way. I’ve learned this in writing poetry as well, when you write ideas down, the first step is to strip away all wasted words. Poetry has no wasted words. God also is deliberate and focused in his message to us.

Poetry, being deliberate and economical with words leads to the message becoming more than what has been said.

Poetry is contextual

Poetry usually has context, words and phrases that you already know and understand, so, you can fill in more information in your head, without needing ideas re-introduced every time.

The ISSA poem from earlier, uses Snow and Deer, and the title “Morning” as things that we already know and have associations with in our heads. Poetry uses words and tools to trigger memories inside the readers. God does this with types in the Bible. The Bible is full of shadows, types, and reminders of things previously said.

Again, from Paul:

“For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10:11-17).

Here, God uses the idea of Jew and Greek so clearly established in the Old Testament as the context of how we need to transform from a people who understand that following a law of God, and earning our salvation as the Pharisaical Jews believed they could, to a law of Grace, salvation given despite our unworthiness.

“For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom 11:29-36).

This is the message of Grace we remember every Sunday, Jesus on the cross. This indeed was typified throughout the Bible, all poetic types of Jesus.

• The sacrifice of Joseph by his brothers,
• The golden serpent,
• Jonah in the whale.

Romans has all sorts of context around it: If we read Romans alone for the first time, Paul’s arguments would not be as effective. This message becomes more than what has been said, for the words are full of the context as Paul uses them.

Poetry captures and shares emotions

Communication, as we use it, is imperfect. Communication is one person trying to share with another an idea OR an emotion. The problem is that we, as humans, only have very few ways to communicate. In speech, even this exhortation as an example, I am stringing together a few hundred words and saying them out loud. I am hoping that an idea that I have in my head, is being copied in all of your heads. But, we all know, that does not usually happen. Maybe, if you’ve been paying perfect attention, you have most of the idea I have in my head. However, you likely only have a small portion, and you also may not have been listening at all, and you might have 1% of the idea I’m sharing.

This exhortation is also the sharing of an emotion. I am blown away by the beauty of our Lord and how He wants to share His love with us, through the sacrifice of His son, and my goal in this exhortation is to share that emotion with you.

One of the great powers of poetry is that, when understood, it draws an emotional response. Poetry causes emotions to be felt in us, without telling us to feel them. Remember the Issa poem we started with? Clearly an emotion of friendship and closeness has been transmitted: and by the way, this does NOT work by just saying “now, feel the warm feeling of friendship”.

The statement of emotions is completely ineffective.

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,” (Heb 6:19).

God transmits emotions to us in the Bible over and over, and, even more beautifully, He does this to each of us in different ways! We all have different parts of the Bible that we feel particularly connected to. The assurance of the details of prophecy can be such a warm and confidence building feeling that we know comes directly from our Father. The life guidance found in the Epistles can be that feeling “directions we need from our older siblings”. The beautiful songs and poems in the psalms can be the expressions of comfort and worship that we feel when we know we are loved by God.

These different emotional responses we get from Scripture is another poetic way that God gives us His message from the Bible. By understanding the poetry of it, we understand more than what is literally said. The combination of this and other factors make Poetry.

Jesus

Consider Jesus, who combines these three aspects in his life and in his words. He was so deliberate in his speech, his message was full of context, and he elicited an emotional response. “Take eat, this is my body” (Matt 26:26). He spoke these words deliberately and clearly. These words were shadows and types, and we hear the shared emotion of an intimate meal with close friends in family, colored by the message of Christ’s sacrifices

“And when he had taken the cup, giving thanks, he gave it to them, ‘drink from it all of you… I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of this vine from now until I drink it together with you in My Father’s Kingdom’ ” (Matt 26:27-29).

We are all welcome to the Love of God in Jesus. That is message that says so much more than the words themselves, when we read them here on the paper.

Poetry has helped me remember to think on a different plane. God’s plane. We should all raise our thinking to understand that God’s message of love to us is deliberate. He uses so many ways to reach us, and all we need to do is listen, read, and understand. This bread and this wine is a Poem for us. This Poem results in salvation.