Scott Cairns' "Philokalia"

I’ve previously noted that I had attended a poetry workshop taught by poet (and University of Missouri professor) Scott Cairns. Twelve of us spent two days talking about poetry, and talking about poetry in relation to Scripture, and writing poetry, our overnight assignment: pick a difficult passage of Scripture and explicate it – using poetry. In other words, we had to write a poem that might help our understanding of the passage.

Much of that idea of explicating Scripture underlies Cairns’ Philokalia: New and Selected Poems. Published in 2002, the volume includes both new poems and poems from his previously published collections (he’s also published more since then). The term “philokalia,” or “love of the beautiful,” is taken from the collection of texts written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by Easter Orthodox theologians.

To continue reading, please see my post today at The Master’s Artist.