Kirjahaku

Bazyn's poems seek to encourage Christians of all stripes to present a new song unto the Lord--by actual example and useful advice. All sorts of issues relating to creativity are touched upon, whether theological, psychological, sociological, philosophical, linguistic, or autobiographical. Among the topics covered: finding your own voice; reading widely and deeply in the classics; being spare, concise in your style; discovering your genuine self beneath its assorted masks; taking occasional flights of fantasy; considering your mind as a house of memory; perfecting your art, even in a miniature way. Celebrating your mentors--among the authors are Dickinson, Donne, and Hafez; reflecting on your past by looking at old photographs; drawing inspiration from home and family; not allowing overly critical editors to stifle your creativity; recognizing that the artistic life may be a lonely and perilous journey toward fulfillment; seeking after God's will in all that you do; never being afraid to head into deeper waters; acknowledging that we are, at best, half-converted souls. Black-and-white photos by the author illumine the themes of these pieces. Also, there is a bibliography of recommended readings on creativity. Go, and find your voice; then let it rise up to the Lord night and day. ""I like Bazyn's writing and photography very much indeed. What impresses me most is the imaginative energy that he brings to the task. It is amazing "" --Leland Ryken, Author of A Complete Handbook of Literary Forms in the Bible ""I am astonished and delighted at the way Bazyn brings together spirituality, culture, philosophy, myth, and storytelling--along with captivating photos--to light up the meaning of words and phrases, and life itself."" --Michael Leach, co-editor of The Way of Gratitude: Reflections for a Joyful Life Ken Bazyn is long-time editorial director of Religious Book Club. He has written The Seven Perennial Sins and Their Offspring and Soul-Wrestling: Meditations in Monochrome. His articles have been published in forty periodicals, from Commonweal to Dialog, and his photographs have appeared in forty-five magazines. Bazyn's two previous books of poetry are Gospel Midrashim: Poems on the Life of Jesus and Jesting Angels: God's Lighter Side; his poems have appeared in sixteen little magazines.

How can one do justice to the heights and depths of the human condition, its mind-boggling accomplishments, its horrid corruptions? Christian tradition, in its wisdom, has acknowledged both extremes. We are fallible amphibians, composed of matter and spirit, yet capable of intense communication with God. Bazyn poetically expands on, and dissects, the conundrums. Frustrations dog our every step, and cravings overthrow us repeatedly. Why are we so prone to duplicity, to prejudice? What causes us to explode in anger, retreat into superficiality, see only the short-term? Why do we mistreat and ridicule others (e.g., the poor, minorities, women)? Free will itself can create saints or antiheroes. Rich in vocabulary, dense in allusions, far-ranging in insight, at times aphoristic in style, these poems are the outpourings of anguished authenticity. What message is our town bell pealing today? Why are there flaws beneath the smoothest of surfaces? How is it that we so often follow a zigzag course? If revelation comes, it may blind us or shine but a dim, shadowy half-light. Bazyn's spontaneous, undoctored black-and-white images clarify, and add nuance, to each vital topic. As Augustine forthrightly acknowledged in Confessions: ""I have become a puzzle to myself."" ""In these intriguing, engaging poems, Bazyn has found just the right images and forms to give voice to his vision of the contradictions inherent in human nature--and, indeed, in the whole universe, and in the Christian narrative of salvation. His accompanying photographs enrich the poems with striking and often surprising visual images."" --Peggy Rosenthal, author of The Poets' Jesus ""At once insightful, stimulating, amusing, and penetrating, Bazyn's poems are profound aesthetic explorations of the enigma termed the human condition."" --Rolland Hein, author of Doors In: The Fairy Tale World of George MacDonald ""Bazyn has put together another beautiful book that brings us to our senses, and beyond to spiritual understanding of the material world and the universe itself, including the one within. A big thanks from this reader."" - MICHAEL LEACH, author of Soul Seeing: Light, Love, Forgiveness Ken Bazyn is long-time editorial director of the Religious Book Club. He has written The Seven Perennial Sins and Their Offspring and Soul-Wrestling: Meditations in Monochrome. His articles have been published in forty periodicals, from Commonweal to Dialog, and his photographs have appeared in forty-five magazines. Bazyn's three previous books of poetry are Gospel Midrashim: Poems on the Life of Jesus, Jesting Angels: God's Lighter Side, and Artistic Alchemy: Transmuting Cinnabar into Gold.

Steeped in the great tradition of Christian poetry, Bazyn offers a series of startling and highly personal interactions with the Four Gospels to break open Jesus' teachings and symbolic acts for our everyday lives. His vivid, allusive poems with references to literature, theology, spirituality, liturgy, ethics, history, saints' lives, and legend are loosely arranged around episodes in Christ's exceptional life as the Nativity, the coming of the Magi, the parables, the raising of Lazarus, the transfiguration, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension. Some pieces are meant to be serious and reflective, others light and satirical; some are modern and concrete, others abstract and universal; some are hortatory, others didactic; a few confessional, a few incandescent celebrations. Like David's Psalter, they represent the kaleidoscope of moods symptomatic of our humanity. Via fetching images, Bazyn seeks to entangle you in the reality which is Christ, that true artesian well for our confused and wandering souls. Drawing on the best of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant thought, this is a genuine gift to the global church. Wide-ranging in its uses, it sits at the boundary of literature and spirituality. Furthermore, it includes footnotes to scriptures (and a Scripture index) to enhance your meditation

One should never assume that the narrator in a poem is expressing views identical to the author's. ""For words, like Nature, half reveal / And half conceal the Soul within,"" wrote Tennyson. Autobiographical elements tend to be so mixed in with the fictional that lines blur. Bazyn's revolving carousel of poetic ""I's"" includes an egotist who makes fun of his arrogance; a baby confused by his wobbly surroundings; the simple joys of a childhood Christmas; youth's dilemma at forging a vocation; the peculiar circumstances surrounding one's first love; reminiscences of a recent class reunion; a period of self-examination following the death of a neighbor; anxiously awaiting a monogrammed invitation; lessons gleaned from closely inspecting nature; exhibiting faith in a secular metropolis; dreaming of a technician's utopia; and the frailty and ragged edges of old age. The narrator is, by turns, nostalgic, uneasy, speculative, forlorn, elated, discombobulated--representing, as he does, different stages of life, personality types, and psychological moods. Bazyn's language can be mysterious, his sentences follow a winding course, his stanzas end abruptly. Bewitching black-and-white photos accent and enhance each poem's metaphors. As you gaze into this verbal/visual mirror, likenesses of the hidden self emerge and take on unexpected shapes.

The late Second Temple period in Judaism and the early Christian era witnessed the rise of apocalyptic literature, its zenith being the New Testament book of Revelation. Among its prominent features are the disparity between this world and the next, a vision of God as coming judge at history's culmination, and the call to perseverance during times of adversity. Bazyn's poems are introduced by an elaborate fantasy of what heaven might be like, citing a number of Christian writers throughout the centuries as well as sources from other world religions. Then you'll encounter verse on the macabre dance of death; Orwellian tremors of totalitarianism; premonitions of madness; visits from an alien world; a house of the Lord utterly destroyed; lingering ambivalence regarding a loving, but holy, God; a triumphant baaing lamb; the cavortings of a holy fool; a final gaze at earthly life from eternity's shore; believers undergoing continuous divinization. Bright 35mm color slides deepen the surreal atmosphere, enabling you to feel the thin boundary between the ephemeral and eternal. Qualms of conscience and mortality take center stage as the entire book turns into a searching exercise for the reader's spiritual formation.

The late Second Temple period in Judaism and the early Christian era witnessed the rise of apocalyptic literature, its zenith being the New Testament book of Revelation. Among its prominent features are the disparity between this world and the next, a vision of God as coming judge at history's culmination, and the call to perseverance during times of adversity. Bazyn's poems are introduced by an elaborate fantasy of what heaven might be like, citing a number of Christian writers throughout the centuries as well as sources from other world religions. Then you'll encounter verse on the macabre dance of death; Orwellian tremors of totalitarianism; premonitions of madness; visits from an alien world; a house of the Lord utterly destroyed; lingering ambivalence regarding a loving, but holy, God; a triumphant baaing lamb; the cavortings of a holy fool; a final gaze at earthly life from eternity's shore; believers undergoing continuous divinization. Bright 35mm color slides deepen the surreal atmosphere, enabling you to feel the thin boundary between the ephemeral and eternal. Qualms of conscience and mortality take center stage as the entire book turns into a searching exercise for the reader's spiritual formation.

After a close reading of the imagery of Song of Songs in its ancient Near Eastern context, Bazyn reveals the ins and outs of love via a series of startling metaphors. His language is strong and direct, commemorating intense emotions, exposing varied vulnerabilities. You hear tales of a music box, a keepsake, a valentine, a love potion, a romantic boat ride--wistful longings punctuated by profound regrets. The beloved is compared to a rugged outcropping, urban architecture, a bounding gazelle. We encounter teasing and laughter, nudity and deepened communion, misunderstandings and tears. There are bold entreaties at the beloved's door, tongue-in-cheek conquests, forbidden rendezvous, everyday marital squabbles, dream premonitions, adolescent intrigues, and heartrending partings. Bazyn's lyrics run the gamut from Proust-like sensory associations to consoling lullaby, from frenetic mania to soulful self-admonition. He revisits Greco-Roman classics (e.g., the judgment of Paris, the sorrowing nymph Echo, Odysseus's faithful wife Penelope, the revenge of Medea) and reinterprets Scripture (the sensual beauty of Sarah, Hosea's marriage to a whore, Jesus's parable of the foolish virgins). Bazyn's imagery dances in your head. The unretouched black-and-white photos help sear his ideas into your imagination. You begin to reminisce about the vicissitudes of your own relationships.

We live in a sacramental universe, where each and every object we encounter can, in the twinkling of an eye, signify God's presence. In the introductory essay Christ himself is imaginatively likened to that king of the savanna, the lion. Bazyn's nature poems, via bright and subtle similes, move freely between the abstract and the specific, the static and the dynamic, the solemn and the whimsical--in an entrancing series of acrobatic maneuvers. Spring rain elicits the Great Awakening; a bumper harvest heralds the first Thanksgiving; a mist-covered waterfall excites a chance reverie; a flower in bloom infuses the ordinary with the supernatural; an animal game amusingly depicts quotidian diversity; hope warbles full-throatedly during an eclipse; human grandeur seems dwarfed by El Capitan; a collection of disparate, incalculable items clarify the limits of reason; creation itself groans on in anticipation of future transfiguration. To enhance each poem's significance, a striking black-and-white 35mm image is added, whether a luminous landscape or an exquisite close-up--as both flora and fauna offer up their ceaseless praise. Language itself cracks and bends into ever more unusual shapes and forms. Bazyn's vision recalls that of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who endeavored to decode nature's hidden symbolism.