"gets confusing when poets do start to preach"

"Of course it gets confusing when poets do start to preach.."

I love that quote from Mark Maynell about Bono.
(full article, "U2: The Stadium Psalmists and Prophets," HT: Beth)

We need more poets immediately to speak into the church, as the church, or against the church.
We need Mark DeRaud to resurrect, re-surrect and remix Art N Soul yesterday.

We don't need to bring back modernity's "three points and a poem" sermons.
(Maynell: "Therefore their creations are often vague, elusive, hard to pin down. They seek to
articulate experience, perhaps, more than doctrines. But that doesn’t render their creations
false, necessarily! Truth, after all, is not less than propositional; but nor can it ever be
exclusively propositional.")

Or another "Footprints" (although the renegade sequel "Butt Prints" is profound..and will preach..yes, I have preached it!).


But we do need more tribesters like Bruce Cockburn, who has said/sung/prophesied well :

Maybe the poet is gay
Let him be heard anyway
Maybe the poet is drugged
But he won't stay under the rug
Maybe the voice of the Spirit
In which case you'd better hear it
Maybe he's a woman
Who can touch you where you're human
Male female slave or free
Peaceful or disorderly
Maybe you and he will not agree
But you need him to show you new ways to see
Don't let the system fool you
All it wants to do is rule you
Pay attention to the poet

You need him and you know it
Put him up against the wall
Shoot him up with pentothal
Shoot him up with lead
You won't call back what's been said
Put him in the ground
But one day you'll look around
There'll be a face you don't know
Voicing thoughts you've heard before
Male female slave or free
Peaceful or disorderly
Maybe you and he will not agree
But you need him to show you new ways to see
Don't let the system fool you
All it wants to do is rule you
Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it
_Bruce Cockburn 1982
-link

Self-effacing Martin Smith told us last month (full audio interview: "Martin Smith: 'only in America do they do that!'"):
"I'm a poet, not a church leader,"

but I maintain poets are church leaders.
will be church leaders.
cannot not be heard.

A Valentines poem I wrote in high school Spanish class delighted my teacher with it's Poe-like twist:

Toma mi corazon, mi querida
Haz esto, y me causa alegria
Toma mi corazon, mi querida
Completo con sangre y arteria.

It may not translate well...you know what EP says, and BB says , about translation...but here goes. She read the first three lines aloud for the class, with all the exaggerated romantic flourish
they deserved:

Take my heart, my love
Do this, and cause me great joy
Take my heart, my love..

And the final (punch)line with it's non-sequitur shock:

Complete with blood and artery.

My more recent poems (some rhyme , some don't have been a bit more..uh, theological.
But back to blood and artery..

Maybe I was onto something..

Bono, the stadium poet-prophet has suggested a useful method of song/poem (and thus sermon) writing:

"sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.."

More?

See:
"Walter Brueggemann: Finally comes the poet - daring speech for proclamation"