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.