This is the story of a poem.
Here is a link right to the poem: The poem.
A long time ago, in a galaxy you are soaking in right now, I
was just another crazy kid with a taste for the macabre living in the big city
and teaching on Long Island. It
was New Years Eve and I was tarting up to go to my bff’s party and also
probably predrinking and wrote this poem that I wrote because I didn’t have a
New Years Boyfriend that particular December and yet my dour was alleviated by the fact that I had this great party to which to go, and in
gratitude I sat down and wrote it, the poem of which we speak. I am that poet up with which you are
putting right now.
I guess I was already writing Doubt then? No. Not. I was
probably still writing academic articles on the Society of Mutual Autopsy and
cetera. Still the work was on atheism and we talked about it and always mostly shared ground. I guess M just musta said
to me, in laughter, that she thought I might leave her if she started to
believe in God again, as she had in her youth. I wanted to say to her dude, I don’t mind if you give in to
feeling too much, believe me, in my way I have always given in and would be glad
if you did too in whatever way you want to feel too much, I’m with
you, as I am your bff and as I respect feeling too much.
So the poem was about passion — to me, awe is awesome. Getting pretty for the party I was not
in the basket of the zeppelin of joy but was above the great balloon itself
that’s rising. So I wanted to get
that feeling on screen, so I wrote this
long praise poem and I brought it to the party that night (on paper) which I went to early
(as requested, bff style), and in tote, the poem. M read and it teared
her up and totally mussed her New Years Eve mascara, for which I was duly berated and
even perhaps physically knocked around.
Wink. (In person I would
have demonstrated the girlfriend spank, a back and forth slapping motion applied
up and down the outer arm).
I never published the poem until I put it in my book, my
first book of poetry and my first book at all. It seemed too full of secrets and it is, but don’t think you know
which are mine, or Ms or anyone's for that matter.
It is full of secrets, like a nicked bloody heart pumping at the center of the
text. But what are you gunna do,
right, yer a poet, you spill, you’re gonna get some of it on your shirt. I shuddered to put it in print in a
way, but I weigh it and figure: unshutter.
Then Speaking of Faith did this show with me on Doubt and
they put this poem up on their web site, which makes a great sense from the
title and end of it, but that which during the reading I'm not sure all will know how it applies, but I throttle the bottle a
little (a lottle) so the experience might match what I am trying to say in the
chat which is atheists have awe and mystery-feelings too. you don’t stop gawking at the glory of
love and beauty just because you don’t like having imaginary friends.
And that is that, the story of “No I Will Not Leave You If
You Suddenly Found God.” An inside
look in my head. Grab a flashlight
before you get in too deep! Bring an adult.
Here is the Speaking of Faith show Link: Speaking of Faith
And also this week I was interviewed on a radio show this week that I really
like. Q Transmissions — Happiness
The Speaking of Faith
interview was first done in 2003 but they still replay it on their holiday
reprisals, which is super great for me.
But for me, I braced and reheard the SOF interview and then listened to this new interview and I was like wow. There's difference in me and what I’m doing in the conversations. Some things I’m super careful with in
the first show I’m like a brave bull in a shop made out of china in the second
one. Funny.
Finally, allow me to say that I hope you are all well in
this happy winter. Someday leaves
will float up when they die, but for now, there is no revolution worth our
afternoon. As Kundera wrote to
calm someone down, “you are a broom, among brooms, in a broom closet” and as
Steve Martin suggested, bleaders, friends, fellow victims of feeling, “let’s
get small.”
hugs,
Jennifer