[Paula Fernandez]

An Agnostic's Prayer: Upon Hearing Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum

No more by fire or cloud or gentle wind
but from conductors’ hands doth Thou ascend.
Those granted feathered heart and tonguéd gift
form their flocks and melodic hymns uplift.
Pure liquid grace pours from each fluted throat
to glide and swoop and climb from note to note.
Would that I a vibrant bird could be
and raise wild warbling cries in praise of Thee.

But greater still master the listener’s art,
for it’s the ear that weaves each part with part.
Let me, dear Lord, more like the bunny be
with long and agile ears attuned to Thee.
Anoint my silken soul with song’s caress,
and through this earthly choir my silence bless.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Paula, after the lofty and not particularly imaginative zeal of all this, one line (I apologize in advance) seems unintentionally risible to me:

Let me, dear Lord, more like the bunny be.

The swoop from absurdly high to quaintly low actually make me guffaw, as does the alliterative hyper-inversion of bunny be.
I'm sorry, but I can't help but feel like the kid sniggering in the back-row of class.

The poem does not work for me at all.
Oh yes, I get the turn from heaven in the octet to earth in the sestet, but the language seems both overblown and tedious at the same time.
And all the straining after reverence seems to have squeezed all the emotion from every line of the poem.

Nemo

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Paula—

I notice that you often refer to rabbits/bunnies in your poems. In “Ghazal on Losing Hope,” you use “rabbit” as a metaphor for hope being chased by hunting dogs. In “In Praise of Idleness,” “bunnies” hop in untilled fields. In this poem, you pray to be more like the “bunny” whose long, and agile ears are attuned to God’s message (presumably in the music). Most of your poems refer to animals. Do you have a Wallace-Stevens-style system of symbolism for them?
I didn’t realize until I was several lines in that your tongue was in your cheek. I think the accent on tonguéd tipped me off. That, the inversions, and the mixed metaphors (a heart covered with feathers and a soul made of silk smeared with oil from the caress of a song) convinced me that you were not being entirely serious. Was your intent to poke fun at Handel’s composition?

Glenn

[Paula Fernandez]

Nemo & Glenn--As always, gratitude for the honest feedback. I've changed the title in hopes of nudging toward more clarity on the intention of this poem. Will wait to see if that helps any new readers before I make a decision on whether to throw this one in the bin.

Glenn-- Thank you for asking. Here's my bunny story. I grew up on a farm. My parents gave me bunnies for my birthday when I was 5--my birthday fell on Easter that year. I tended the rabbits for several years, breeding them in Spring and selling their offspring for pets in the Easter season. When I was 7 or 8, I left the hutch imperfectly latched. In the morning I came out to discover that the farm dogs had gotten in and killed all of them. So, yes, bunnies and dogs and also other farm animals. Elsewhere, I'm working on a haibun series (title: American Pastoral) about my experiences on the farm.

[Jim Moonan]

.
You've put your poetic talents into overdrive with this one. It almost feels like pastiche. I guess this is the place to do that.

Given that there has been so much talk of late here about archaic language, this one seems to teeter on being just that. It's primarily the inverted phrasing.

If in fact this is a prayer, I would suggest simplifying the language and imagery to be more prayerful. There is something powerful about the message that is pent within this and if you were to more plainly speak of it I think it would come pouring out.

I also suggest the title might be broken in two and relegate the influence to being an epigraph:

An Agnostic's Prayer
.
Upon Hearing Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum


.

[Max Goodman]

The silence being blessed is intriguing and ambiguous-feeling, a thought worth sharing.

It took me several attempts to work through the poem to reach that final thought; finding the poem anywhere but in a workshop, I wouldn't have bothered. The language (obsolete words, old-fashioned-feeling inversions) was a strong barrier to becoming engaged.

The language also muddies for me the poem's attitude toward religion and this music. The content feels respectful, reverent even. The language feels mocking. I suppose the reverent details are themselves hyperbolic, suggesting the whole things may be a send-up, but it lands somewhere genuine, and in any case, what would be the point of a send-up?

FWIW.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Jim Moonan

Given that there has been so much talk of late here about archaic language, this one seems to teeter on being just that. It's primarily the inverted phrasing.

Teetering? I’d say it falls solidly on the archaic side of the fence, which is ok, but it points up two problems with that kind of language: 1) few of us are fluent in it, so it’s easy to confuse “doth” with “dost,” etc.; and 2) it teeters on humor. I was alone in hearing humor in “In Praise of Idleness,” but everyone is picking up on it here. The only disagreement is whether it’s intentional or not. I love the title for mocking its own seriousness—or is it?

[Julie Steiner]

Dear Paula,

I agree with Nemo that the diction of "bunny" threw me out of the poem. "Coney" might fit the throwback vibe better.

The octave/sestet division between singing and listening is interesting, but I personally don't think human choral music has much to do with birdsong (despite my having encountered this metaphor in many languages), and rabbits have never struck me as listening for anything but predators, so I don't quite buy the metaphors. And the old-timey feel isn't my cup of tea.

Sorry for your childhood trauma.

[David Callin]

Hi Paula. The revised title does help, to the point where, guided by that, I see what you're getting at now. On that level, I think it works, but you can probably find a better way to make the point I think you're making here. It's still quite a hard read, even knowing why the style is so inflated.

And I will never think of the bunnies in your poems in the same way again. It's like finding out that Bambi is actually a dark allegory of early domestic abuse (which I really hope it isn't).

Cheers

David