IDIOT PSALMS

"a spark igniting / once again the tinder of our lately / banked noetic fire"

—from "Annunciation" by Scott Cairns, as found in Idiot Psalms 

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I was first introduced to the poetry of Scott Cairns when I purchased a copy of Philokalia: New & Selected Poems in 2002. Initially, I picked up the book due to the icon of Saint Isaac of Syria on the cover. Then, I knew these poems were going home with me because of the series of poems titled "Adventures in New Testament Greek," which explore the terms metanoia, hairesis, nous, mysterion, and apocatastasis.

In Idiot Psalms, Cairns presents us poems in four main sections—"Unawares," "Heychasterion," My Byzantium," and "Erotic Word." Fourteen "Idiot Psalms" weave throughout the four sections, along with other poems, each with some sort of theological import while simultaneously lifting up the inadequacy of creation, the body, and our ability to comprehend the Divine. "The world remains a puzzle," as the narrator of "Heavenly City (Ouranoúpoli)" states.

A blurb on the back of the book claims that "Dostoyevsky and the psalmists" are "traveling companions" of Cairns. I've never read The Idiot, but I can see the inspiration of the psalms throughout, as well as many notions familiar from Christianity, Orthodox (for Cairns) and otherwise.

I've read all of the poems twice now and I am just starting to understand many of them. Maybe. It isn't due to them being difficult to read, but being challenged to see things differently, to think differently. To admit an inability to understand.

My favorite poem is "Annunciation." It takes a familiar scene—the angel Gabriel informing Mary that she will bear the Christ-child and provide for the birth and incarnation of God—and in eleven brief lines transforms it into something that vibrates with more energy than should be possible within its frame. We move from the clay of creation to the nativity of Christ, with Mary as our representative, as the very nature of our essence and our relationship to our Creator is revealed. This is powerful, revelatory work that Cairns does on the page.

I will be turning to, and returning to, these poems again and again.

A GOOD and HAPPY CHILD

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans has sat on one of the shelves of my home library for the past twelve years. I intended to read it upon purchase, but other books arrived and this novel of psychological horror fell farther down the reading list eventually being stabled on a bookcase and forgotten.

Which is too bad, because this is some top-notch scary stuff.

George Davies is a new father who cannot hold his infant son. His wife is at her wit's end. George visits a therapist in an attempt to save his marriage. Most of the narrative takes place as we read through a series of notebooks that the therapist challenges George to keep.

Eleven-year-old George Davies is an intellectually precocious kid dealing with the recent death of his father. When a demon visits George "all hell breaks loose." This is the same demon that supposedly killed his father.

Ultimately, we get different explanations for the presence of this demon—an actual demon that needs to be exorcised, command auditory hallucinations of a young mind in meltdown, or a child grieving the death of his father and his mind trying to make sense of it all—and the ramifications of trying to keep this demon at bay.

We meet various experts and authority figures trying to deal with George and his Friend—family members, church officials and practitioners, and psychologists, therapists, and medical personnel.

It's a compelling read and one that I found difficult to put down. And the ending... Oh. Dear. God.

Maybe I'll sleep with the lights on tonight. Highly recommended.

REVIVAL

Revival is Stephen King at his Lovecraftian best. King has many works that refer to, or play in, the realm of the Cthulhu Mythos. The first story I ever read by King, "Crouch End" in New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980), is good Lovecraftian horror that marries King's voice with elements of the Mythos—and does so while never revealing too much of "the other realm" but enough to keep the "creepy factor" high. Revival reads in a similar vein.

Revival is aptly named, as the novel plays with the various denotations and connotations of the word. There is religious revival, restoration to life, and rising up from disease or drug addition.

All of the horror is contained within the story of two men—Jamie Morton and the Reverend Charlie Jacobs—who first meet when Jamie is six and Rev. Jacobs is the new pastor of the church Jamie attends. The book develops their characters well, revealing more of Jamie over the course of the novel, and visiting the various points throughout the years when Jamie and Rev. Jacobs meet up again.

Just as Lovecraft was good at peeling back the onion-like layers of the cosmos to reveal what lurks beneath, so does King. And King does such without worrying too much about the mechanics of some of the pieces that lie beneath. We don't need to know exactly how they function because (a) it doesn't ultimately matter to the story, and (b) it lends the novel a sense of mystery.

When the ending arrives, which I had been trying to figure out and anticipate throughout reading the novel, it was not quite what I expected, but was ultimately fulfilling. If the latter word is adequate to explain the cosmic horror that rises up and leaves the reader off-kilter!

One of my favorite King novels. Highly recommended.

BETTER DAYS

"Better Days." Found art. North Hill, Puyallup, Washington.

RED XII: MEDITATION

"Red XII: Meditation."

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A meditation in floral form.

Mindfulness in the color red.

Ways to focus and leave the world

while the world resonates right there.