epershand: "There is no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow." (Genuine and deep)
epershand ([personal profile] epershand) wrote2011-03-13 11:27 pm

Oh man FOGcon

I'm still coming down from FOGcon, which was incredible and exhilarating and fun and emotionally exhausting (featuring both baby's first time being on a ConCom and baby's first time being on a panel, with bonus hanging out with Pat Murphy and chilling over a cigarette with Terry Bisson and apparently missing pantsless geography lessons by like two minutes and meeting so many incredibly cool people who I'd only known from a distance or over the internet before.) And I have a bunch of different posts about random things in my head.

But before I completely collapse into sleep tonight I just want to throw out in defense of CS Lewis's ungainly but (I think) ultimately delightful Christianity the following ungainly but (I think) ultimately delightful poem about the nature of prayer and metaphor. (I've posted it before but I think it bears repeating.)

Footnote to All Prayers
-- C.S. Lewis

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in mimetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Though take them at their word.

Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
eccentric_hat: (Default)

[personal profile] eccentric_hat 2011-03-14 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Is it ungainly? The hexameter is unexpected, and parts of it are rather clunky I suppose. I am thoroughly charmed, though, as I was the first time you posted this poem.

Have you turned off commenting on your LJ crossposts?
eccentric_hat: (Default)

[personal profile] eccentric_hat 2011-03-15 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Hm. I don't think I mind the enjambment outside of couplets per se--it only happens once, and I think it makes the poem a little less precious--but I would prefer it if he'd arranged it in quatrains like a Shakespearean sonnet instead.

That initial mirroring thing would probably sound better if it were a pentameter line without the "only," which seems to get in the way. "He whom I bow to knows to whom I bow." It wouldn't mean exactly the same thing, of course.

It's possible what this comment is driving at is "all sonnets should be Shakespearean sonnets," though if accused of believing that I would deny it.

[identity profile] route52.livejournal.com 2011-03-16 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
But all sonnets SHOULD be Shakespearean sonnets!

Ahem.

I'm not sure I would say "ungainly, but ultimately charming" on this one - I might be persuaded to make an argument for "ungainly, THUS charming." Especially in a poem very much about the insufficiency of language for the purpose of addressing God, I don't know that I'd want it to be too polished. "Our limping metaphor translate" is just perfect, though.

Epershand - Hopefully this doesn't come across as obnoxiously nitpicky, but in the final line before the couplet, I think possibly it should be Thou, not Though?
curuchamion: Ninth Doctor captioned I see what you knit there (Ravelry) (Nine browsing Ravelry)

[personal profile] curuchamion 2011-04-24 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
'I honestly don't know if I trust Lewis enough as a poet to have done it intentionally. I guess I don't need for him to have done it intentionally to adore it, though :)'

*snert* THIS. I had never seen that poem before, so I just sat here for a minute going sort of "OMG. Lewis's clunky verbiage actually works for something... better than a different style would. Cool."

[personal profile] vito_excalibur 2011-03-15 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
And thank you for being on that panel! :D High five! _o/
wordweaverlynn: (Default)

[personal profile] wordweaverlynn 2011-03-15 10:49 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, I love this. Thanks.

Please do not utterly disappear from my life. You delight me.
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[personal profile] opinion_rush 2011-03-19 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
oooh lovely poem, lovely thought. Found you through people I read on dreamwidth and am subscribing if that's okay.