Heather Cadenhead
Heather Cadenhead unravels Psalm 77 and looks closely for the all of the great poetic bits within it. She also examines her own personal poetry for the same “beautiful truth” she has found in the psalmists verses.
The first time I heard someone refer to the Psalms as a book of poetry, I was considerably moved. As a creative writer living under the grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the idea of God speaking to me through a book of poems was an altogether beautiful notion. I imagine that it’s the same sort of feeling that Johan Huibers, a Dutch contractor, got when he was able to recreate Noah’s ark using the exact measurements given in the Old Testament. There is a sense of wonder in meshing God’s perfect truth with the things we most love to make with our hands, whether that is something functional like an ark or aesthetic like a poem.
As of late, I’ve loved the poetry in Psalm 77 because it seamlessly weaves together three elements of poetry that I believe to be crucial to any completed work of verse.
- It uses metaphor skillfully: “The waters saw You, O God; / The waters saw You, they were afraid; / The depths also trembled” (Psalm 77:16, NKJV). Water, as an inhuman thing, cannot feel the human emotion of fear; however, water is at the mercy of God’s hand. Knowledge of God’s mercy over us creates a fear of the Lord, making the line “The waters saw You, they were afraid” an appropriate and beautiful metaphor.
- It uses beautiful imagery and shows a strong command of language: “Your way was in the sea, / Your path in the great waters, / And Your footsteps were not known” (Psalm 77:19, NKJV). The sea imagery here is not only lovely, but succinct: the Psalmist’s verse isn’t wordy and he doesn’t use unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. In fact, the only adjective in this verse is the word “great” to describe “waters.” The phrase “great waters” serves as a synonym for “sea” here. So, the adjective isn’t meant to be flowery. It’s a necessary description.
- It conveys truth in a chilling way: “Your path was in the great waters, / And Your footsteps were not known” (Psalm 77:19b, NKJV). I discussed this verse in the last point, while talking about imagery, but it also conveys a bone-rattling truth: God can perform the greatest of miracles without even being seen. If He chooses, He may roam the sea without leaving a single footprint. It’s an entirely chilling and beautiful truth conveyed skillfully in the Psalmist’s verse.
As a Christian writer, my goal should be to write beautiful truth. By beautiful, I don’t mean to imply that our poems should read like textual versions of Thomas Kinkade paintings. Far from it. I mean that we should write poems that sound good; we ought to choose strong words (not necessarily concrete words over abstract words, but concrete words to convey abstract ideas). A well-written poem is, to me, a beautiful poem. It isn’t related to the content. Psalm 77, in fact, has a few bleak moments: “Has His mercy ceased forever? / Has His promise failed forevermore?” (Psalm 77:8, NKJV). It has moments that stop you dead in your tracks: “I remembered God, and was troubled; / I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed” (Psalm 77:3, NKJV).
By truth, I mean that our poems as Christians should convey what is true, what is real. In Psalm 77, I find two truths: one is the truth of man’s frailty (“My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; / My soul refused to be comforted” [Psalm 77:2b, NKJV]); the other is the truth of God’s sovereign grace (“Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; / Who is so great a God as our God?” [Psalm 77:13, NKJV]).
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Heather Cadenhead’s poems “Embalming” and “Bone Collection” were published in Relief Issue 3.2. Her work has been featured in Illuminations, Arbor Vitae, The Ampersand Review, Boston Literary Magazine, and other publications. She recently won the Editor’s Prize for an upcoming issue of New Plains Review. Heather lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with her husband, Tyson, and their dog, Arthur. She is the senior editor of The Basilica Review.
#1 by David Holper on February 7, 2010 - 8:58 pm
Just went to a workshop with Ray McGinnis, and he was inspiring in leading a workshop to write psalms, to read them, and to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit. Your blog rings so true in light of that experience.
#2 by Dana Yost on February 9, 2010 - 7:35 pm
A year or two ago, I bought a copy of the new translation of the Psalms by Robert Alter, who took a careful, scholarly approach to the original Hebrew — and really stuck to the original wording’s intent. The result was a gritty, earthier version of the Psalms that I really connected with. Reading them, in this version, it seemed, made me feel closer to the truth, and to the writers of the Psalms who obviously felt a very personal tie to God.
#3 by Dana Yost on February 9, 2010 - 7:39 pm
A year or two ago, I purchased a copy of the new translation of the Psalms by Robert Alter, who took a careful, scholarly approach to the original Hebrew and really stuck to the original’s intent. The result was a translation that is grittier, more earthy — feels as if it truly was lifted out of the age in which the book was written. I really connected to that translation, felt closer to, as you said, the truth and to the Psalm writers, who themselves seemed to feel such a close tie to God.
#4 by Leslie on February 11, 2010 - 12:00 am
I’m excited to look up Psalm 77 and read it for myself. I’ve always, okay not always, but for a while now, loved and tried to replicate in my own work the Hebrew parallelism of the Psalms. “The waters…were afraid;the depths…trembled.” Often, I’ve looked for Truth and beauty everywhere but Scripture. I think writers who are Christian may have a tendency to gravitate toward books by, say, Anne Lamont and Donald Miller because we can recognize the authors as ourselves: similar, creative beings searching, but like Dana we should also be able to connect to the Psalmists. Could “Has His mercy ceased forever?” be sung or cried out without the voice or the body breaking? If we believe that Scripture is True, how much more so we should prize its beauty and be inspired by it. Thanks for the lesson, Heather.
poor Thomas Kinkade.(http://www.crivoice.org/parallel.html for a brief lesson on parallelism in the OT)