Poets and Poems: Dave Harrity and “These Intricacies”

It’s surprising at times with how reading a collection of poems, or even one poem or its title, will take you on a search for understanding that brings you back to where you began. That’s what happened with These Intricacies.

With me, it was the title that first captured my attention. The collection contains no title poem. The title does come from a poem, “Blood From the Stone” by George Oppen (1908-1984), the leading proponent of the Objectivist  school of poetry, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Objectivism “emphasized simplicity and clarity over formal structure and rhyme,” according to the Poetry Foundation.  

Both a poet and editor, Oppen worked with Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, among others. In the 1950s, he was caught up in the Red Scare of the 1950s (he had been a member of the communist party), and fled to Mexico rather than go to prison. When he returned, “Blood from the Stone” was the first poem he wrote, the reference in which became the title of Harrity’s collection of poems.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: Poet Dave Harrity, author of These Intricacies.

“Making Manifest” Review Featured by Sandra Heska King

Last year, I reviewed Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity and the Kingdom at Hand by Dave Harrity (it’s also available on Amazon). I enjoyed reading and using the book; it’s not your typical set of writing exercises and it has broad application to all kinds of writing.

Starting May 1, Sandra Heska King is hosting a devotional series on Making Manifest at her blog. She graciously asked if she could reprint my review, and posted it this morning. If you interested in the subject of faith, writing and creativity, head on over to Sandra’s place.

Dave Harrity’s “Making Manifest”

I’m sure someone must have had the idea before, but if they had, I hadn’t found it – a writing exercise and meditation book for writers who happen to be Christian (note I didn’t say “Christian writers”).

But there’s now Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity, and the Kingdom at Hand by writer and poet Dave Harrity, and it’s a good one. And it’s more – far more – than simply a series of writing prompts.

The book includes 28 readings and exercises (designed to be covered in a month). Some are simple; some are more complex. Some simply ask you to write down your thoughts about a meditation. Others ask for a poem, or more. All are designed with one purpose: “…to help you ‘re-vision’ the way you understand and interact with the kingdom of God.” That doesn’t mean that its purpose is to help make you a better writer, although I suspect that will one of the unexpected benefits of reading and completing this book.

While the temptation is great to skip right to the exercises (okay, yes, I peeked), I discovered the meditations to be insightful and thought-provoking. They’re written from the perspective of a writer and a poet. They’re about words and language, but also faith and belief. Some are meant to be explications of Scripture, to stimulate thinking and possibly even prayer.

Like you might expect from a writer writing for writers (and that’s writers in the broadest possible sense, not just professionals), Making Manifest is what I call “a quiet book,” the exercises best undertaken is solitude, preferably in a quiet place. But once an exercise and a reading are done, they can be used for group discussion as well, and Harrity includes a section for group discussion as an appendix.

Another bonus is also included in the appendix, a short article entitled “Five rules for believing writers.” My favorite is Rule #3: “Remember that what you create is something close to holy.”

Harrity has a volume of poetry being published in 2014. He leads workshops about faith and imagination across the country, and helped found the online publication Antler. He and his family live in Louisville, Kentucky, and he’s taught creative writing courses at Asbury Theological Seminary. He’s not partial to capital letters, but he does use them in Making Manifest.

If you want to use your writing (and poetry) to gain a deeper understanding of the Kingdom of God in a deliberate, focused way, Making Manifest is a fine and insightful way to do it.

Related:

Ruminate magazine interviews Dave Harrity