The Lyric and the Reed

Luky;

THE LYRIC AND GRAHAM HOUGH
The twentieth-century variety of the lyric is explained by Graham Hough (In Bradbury 1976:320) in the following way:

To write a series of lyrics is... like keeping a spiritual diary ... It has little resemblance to the organisation of a large-scale literary work, with formal requirements outside the author's personal development. Much twentieth-century criticism has played down the biographical connection between the poet and his poems, and regards the work as an artefact, floating free from its creator. But this cannot disguise the fact that poetry which takes the lyric as its primary model will always tend to follow the contours of individual experience.

D H LAWRENCE DESCRIBES FREE VERSE
Free verse is described by D H Lawrence the poet (In Pinto 1877:184) as

direct utterance from the instant, whole man. It is the soul and the mind and body surging at once, nothing left out. They speak all together. There is some confusion, some discord. But the confusion and the discord only belong to the reality as noise belongs to the plunge of water.

Therefore it is clear that Lawrence sees free verse as being primarily a set of connotations consisting of a series of mental flashes which spark off one another involuntarily, thus illuminating heart and mind and producing a powerful emotional impact, while striking a sense of kinship between poet and reader; as the poet informs the reader by the message of his/her poetry that explanations are dross when two minds meet in the instant rapport which is created between writer and reader in literature. Such writing demands strong participation from the reader in the process of literary communication.

RIANA SCHEEPERS AND LITERARY COMMUNICATION
As Riana Scheepers (1997:11) puts it:
    
It is expected from the post-modern reader that he will enter the dynamic process of literary  communication pro-actively. (my translation)

SISTER MARIS STELLA CSJ AND HER SONNET
Sister Maris Stella CSJ goes beyond the concept of Lawrence by ascribing the authorship of her poetry to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in her sonnet: It is the Reed (In Noyes 1946:347)

IT IS THE REED
    
     I did not cut myself this hollow reed
     I did not seek it in the shallows growing
     In all my life I paid but little heed
     To burnished reeds in the bright shallows blowing.
     And this that now is thrust into my hand
     Mysteriously cut and tuned for singing
     Was gathered in a strange and distant land
     And has immortal airs about it clinging
     An unseen piper tuned its ghostly note.
     O who would dare to touch it - who would dare?
     From out the fearful hollow of its throat
     Such music pours as I am unaware
     How to devise. I did not think these things.
     It is the reed. It is the reed that sings.

The poet does not appropriate credit for her poetic talents which are God-given. She refers all credit for the beauty of the poetry to the One who inspired it; the Holy Spirit of God. The repetition in the final line gives this poem an elusive musical refrain of great poignancy, causing the reader while searching for its significance to pause before the realisation dawns that the "reed" is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. The Spirit's inspiration enables Sr. M. Stella to write such "music" (12) as to astonish its composer as much as it will later astound the reader.

CARYLL HOUSELANDER AND THE REED OF GOD
Caryll Houselander (1901-1944) describes Mary of Nazareth as a "reed of God" (In Therese 1947:258). Mary is so at one with God that the wind through the flute is the centre of her being. After conceiving Jesus, the Son of God, Mary responded by singing the Magnificat, a glorious oration in honour of God. For over two thousand years since, poets have sung their praise  to Mary in celebration of the fact that God in His infinite wisdom deemed it fit to make her the most blessed of all women.

RADICAL CHANGE
From the differences we see between the tone of much of the poetry written by religious seekers in the earlier twentieth century before 1960 and that of some of the Marian poetry during the remainder of the century, it seems clear that among some of them a number of the perceptions they harboured in relation to the life of the religious seeker underwent a radical change during and after the years of 1959-1967. In the years prior to 1959, the religious seeker poet had, as evidenced in her poetic utterance, reached a height of meditation which gave rise to the twofold anchorage of total identification with the moral and ethical excellence of Mary the Mother of Jesus and a gift of expression which, while frequently marked by brevity, gives evidence of the fruits of a meditation seldom experienced by poets during the centuries which separated the medieval Marian lyric from the twentieth century, if we exclude the work of a few outstanding exponents of the genre of Marian praise poetry such as Robert Southwell (1561-1595) and the Victorian priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889).

Catherine Nicolette;
Reading the above blog made me smile. Last week I was walking along a beautiful woodland and lake area in Dublin, Ireland. The scenery about me was breathtaking, and I was contentedly taking photographs. I heard a rustle, the flute of the wind through the trees and the triplet song of a bird pouring pure through the atmosphere. It was as if nature was playing its orchestra in the spring which is gracing Ireland, and as I turned towards the sound of the wind as the last sighs of the breathy music began to die down, I hit my finger on the button on the camera without taking a sighting or planning the photograph. The photo that came out was of a reed in the shape of a flute floating on the water between two banks, one with fresh green stems, and the far bank graced with brown autumnal stems. 'How odd,' I thought to myself,' That long reed looks very like the long flute I learned to play long ago from the Sister who taught me music at school.'

How apt this photo turned out to be. Maris Stella's reed of God floated symbolically for me before the brown burnished reeds on the far bank blowing in the gentle music of the wind I heard in the bright shallows of the cool Irish water. It was mysteriously cut (probably by nature and the wind...) and lay on the water, a quiet image to me of days gone by when I played flute in Welkom tutored by the dedicated  missionary who was an incredible musician and teacher, and lived inspired by the Grace of God.

What a beautiful image Maris Stella and Caryll Houselander placed before us. God the Creator played the music of His redemption, Jesus Christ, through the reed flute of Mary of Nazareth. The sounds of His message made possible through her still resounds throughout the world.

*Photograph was taken in Dublin, Ireland, by Rev. Catherine. Please feel free to use copyright free for any educational or spiritual purpose.