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27 February 2006

Welcome to Poetry & Faith!

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. This site is dedicated to involvement, excellence, experimentation, and leadership by Christians in the arts. My personal commitment is to writing, particularly poetry, but I also welcome conversations about painting, sculpture, drama, music, drawing, photography, dance, mime, etc.: whatever you think is an art form that can be used for God’s glory! Many of you, my friends, and I have had on-going email discussions in which we evaluate, critique, react to, and suggest improvements on each others’ writing. I would love to see this site become a larger version of that: Please post your own writing and other work, then launch into detailed critiques of my work and each others’. Let this become a forum for writing and creating excellence!
I also hope to carry on dialogue about concerns of the spiritual and the aesthetic. The particular issues I will be discussing in my posts will include the following:
* What is good poetry (writing, art, etc.)?
* Why aren’t Christians the best poets (writers, etc.) out there today?
* Saying the same thing another way: Why is most “Christian” poetry garbage? Don’t we have revelation?
* What is “sacramental” writing?
* How exactly does “subcreation” work?
* What does it look like to have the Holy Spirit for your Muse?
* Do you have to view the world a certain way in order to write about it? Or are many worldviews valid foundations for great art?
* And, following from that question, one of my personal difficulties right now: Does a Christian Neo-Platonist philosophy freeze the creative juices or block the Muse? Several poets on poetry I’ve been reading lately, including Scott Cairns and Luci Shaw, believe so.
Please respond with your creative thoughts! And, to get the critique part started, here is a haiku:

Sanctification
So, go ahead. Start
any time now. I’m ready.
(I’m not, so I am.)

Admonit (Iambic Admonit)