A Way of Life

One of the most prominent ways that religion is found in Southern poetry is through poems that reflect God or religion in everyday living. Poems that have spirituality woven through them seamlessly as though the two could not be parted. This manner of writing is one that is definitively Southern. It encompasses the conservative and religious upbringing of the South and it is interwoven into the very fabric of these Southern poets' writing.

In the poem Red Moon by Robin Kemp we see this idea of God and the spiritual being interwoven into the everyday existence. This poem talks about the very earthy and natural sensations that the speaker is experiencing, and through all of that she is looking for something beyond herself, something greater. She is looking for God beyond what she knows, yet also in what she knows.

Another example is from What the Body can Say by Natasha Trethewey. This poem expresses how God is used as a means for answers and without thinking people question Him when things are unexplainable or unknown to them. Here the speaker expresses how the body tells a story with the movements that it makes. She tells of her mother's movements that are a mystery to her and how she asks God what those movements meant. Over and over in this poem there are references to religion and God, and the ending thought is to ask of God what her mother had wanted. This is a clear portrayal of how God answers and is the source of wisdom to many people.

Other poems such as The Christening, Unholy Sonnet 13, and Gospel all use this same method of interweaving religion and God into the poetry. This is used at times to express how the speaker was raised, how the speaker feels about life, and at times how they question life and who they blame or praise for things. The Christening talks about a family of drunks who all go to a family member's christening hungover, yet they still go to church and their children are still christened. This is a good picture of how even though the actions of some people may not reflect a super spiritual lifestyle, it is still the Southern tradition to go to church and to play the part. Through all these poems we see that church specifically is something that is just a way of life. Whether you want to or not, you just did it. God is in nature, in questions, and in the South's weekly routines.

Red Moon by Robin Kemp (page 38)

The ground feels icy through my sweatshirt, but
a festival surrounds us where we lie:
tonight’s a full eclipse! Telescopes jut
behind the Science Building, where I may
catch cold or frostbite, lounging on the ground
and staring at the stars. The campus cops
have turned off lights for us. We mill around
and stare through each mechanical Cyclops
at piercing beams of light from years ago.
The waxing moon melts slowly. At its peak,
spontaneously, we all howl: we know
that blood-red rock reverberates. We seek
a sign or immortality, a shield,
some hint of God beyond our own dark field.

What the Body can Say by Natasha Trethewey (page 9)

Even in stone the gesture is unmistakable—
the man upright, though on his knees, spine

arched, head flung back, and, covering his eyes,
his fingers spread across his face. I think

grief, and since he’s here, in the courtyard
of divinity school, what he may ask of God.

How easy it is to read this body’s language,
or gestures we’ve come to know—the raised thumb

that is both a symbol of agreement and the request
for a ride, the two fingers held up that once meant

victory, then peace. But what was my mother saying
that day not long before her death—her face tilted up

at me, her mouth falling open, wordless, just as
we open our mouths in church to take in the wafer,

meaning communion? What matters is context—
the side of the road, or that my mother wanted

something I still cannot name: what, kneeling,
my face behind my hands, I might ask of God.

Gospel by Andrew Hudgins (page 42)

“Jesus will always be there. He’s waiting. It’s true.”
He wiped his forehead, crooned, began to sway:
“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling you.

O sinner, come home. Come start your life anew.
I’ll stand here as the organ gently plays.
Jesus will always be there. He’s waiting. It’s true.”

I squirmed and giggled in the farthest pew,
then jabbed my best friend, smirked. He wouldn’t play.
“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling you.”

Too softly for me. I picked dirt off my shoe.
I drummed my fingers and watched my best friend pray.
“Jesus will always be there. He’s waiting. It’s true.”

Well let him wait, I thought. He’s overdue.
We get home after kickoff every Sunday.
“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling you.”

I prayed the preacher’d save a soul or two
so he’d shut up and let me go. He swayed.
Jesus is always there. He’s waiting. It’s true.
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling you.

The Christening by Julie Kane (page 4)

The only person in the christening room
who doesn’t have a headache and bloodshot eyes
is that baby, wriggling like the neighbor’s cat
we dressed up in doll clothes, her mother and I,

when we were girls. Well, what the hell:
God made the Kanes for getting drunk.
Who knows the sad old Irish songs,
or loves the piano like flesh and blood,

except our family? Even the baby’s
mother, as a child at dinner, dropped
her head on the table after too much wine,
giggling into the tablecloth.

Holding my very lively niece
over the stone baptismal font,
I feel like the thirteenth fairy godmother
Hissing a prophecy no one wants

To hear: The priest will sign the cross
in oil between my godchild’s eyes,
and Adam’s sin will wash away,
but ours will wait like a harbor mine.

II. by Stacey Lynn Brown (page 20)

Down South, all it takes
to be a church are some stencils
and a van. And my childhood
was full of them:

The Episcopal litanies of Sunday school
exercises in genuflection,
the low country Southern Baptist pit
of hellfire and damnation

hemming us inside the tent
while just outside,
flies hoverbuzzed above
plattered chicken, slaw, and beans.

Prophets profiteering in spoken
tongues as the Charismatic
wailed and thrashed and shook
their Babel babble down.

In dirt-floored shacks, fevered
believers danced themselves
into a frenzy, coiling snakes like copper
bracelets dangling from their wrists,

spit-cracked lips and boot heel clog,
the bass line itself almost enough
to give you back your faith.
Grape juice in Dixie

cups, cardboard host, backwashed
wine, this grit who’d been told
to be still and learn
was never any closer to God

then when I stood at the back of that
whitewashed clapboard A.M.E. I could only
ever visit: The preacher pacing the worn
strip of rug, pleading, Help us Lord,

teach us how to love,
sending testified ripples that washed
over heads nodding bobs
on waves of his words:

choir rocking, feet stomping, peace
only to be found in the swing skirt of shimmy
and the big-bellied voices booming it holy
in the gospel of move and know sway.

Unholy Sonnet 13 by Mark Jarman

Drunk on the Umbrian hills at dusk and drunk
On one pink cloud that stood beside the moon,
Drunk on the moon, a marble smile, and drunk,
Two young Americans, on one another,
Far from home and wanting this forever—
Who needed God? We had our bodies, bread,
And glasses of raw, green, local wine,
And watched out Godless perfect darkness breed
Enormous softly burning ancient stars.
Who needed God? And why do I ask now?
Because I’m older and I think God stirs
In details that keep bringing back that time,
Details that are just as vivid now—
Our bodies, bread, and sharp Umbrian wine.