Chapter 14 : Where have all the faithful poets gone?

Australian Christians know, and can often recite from memory, lots of beautiful scriptural poetry, including the psalms and the Beatitudes, and countless other well loved texts - but where are the Aussie Christian poets of our era? This is one public arena that Australian Churches have, little by little, deserted, since the 1960s cultural cringe got the better of us. St James Anglican Church, King Street, Sydney, is one of the very few Australian Churches that still make an effort to value, recognise and publish local Australian Christian poetry - see their monthly magazine, Collections, at www.sjks.org.au

Thankfully, Australia has its share of brave social justice poets, such as Bruce Dawe, and the irrepressible Michael Leunig, not forgetting the rising crowd of young hymn-writers. I've just met the enterprising Rev. John Bunyan, who's just published his collection of contemporary sonnets. Attending Aussie poetry performance events and slams can also be an eye-opener. However, overtly Christian poets are barely there, due to supercilious pressure from the Great Unchurched, and a new consciousness that religion is as prone to human error and falsification as any human endeavour, when left unguarded.  

However, a little digging may unearth a new generation of brave Aussie Christian bards. 

Hence my poetic rant below :

Theopoetica

(by Elizabeth Sheppard)

I went to read my poems at a festival, one day,

I milled about with hardy minds intent on speak and say.

Some raged about the status quo, some decorated pages,

A few explored in metaphors, and fame adorned the stages.

I stepped up, page in hand, to spout my lines as well as able;

Poetic censors viewed my rhymes, to gauge their market value.

They scanned my writing, peered at me, tut-tutted, sneered, and quibbled;

"Dear lady, take your scribbles home! No faith's allowed, in Babel!"

I said, "Hang on, your poster said you welcome all and sundry!

God's Word, expressed in rhyme and song, has always fed the hungry!"

They looked again, and said, "Your views are well beyond the pale,

Why can't you just convert to us, and tell a faithless tale?

Pick out a premise, patronize, promote a well-paid fashion!

We don't mind how you put it - just don't mention God, or Mammon!"

I retreated, shocked and sobered by this cynic attitude,

Then reviewed the poems offered by parades of poets new.

Not a skerrick of religion, of God's Word, or truth, or right:

In their place sat King Disorder, with his Jester, Poet Lite!

There were atheistic sonnets and iconoclastic odes,

Wandering agnostic ballads, endless paradigms of woe,

There were formulaic wonders, cybergenerated clones

Of great Shakespeare, and I-sonnets of a narcissistic tone.

In this Godless realm of Babel, where the voice of faith is stilled,

There's a way to save religion, that our ancestors knew well.

With faith, disguised as fiction in a Potter-like abyss,

We revert to allegory, laced with satire, dreams, and myths,

So, as metaphysics comes of age, perambulating far,

And teaches faith in parables, raising the Christmas star,

A greater witness lies in store, in this our cyberspace;

God's love unfurls its flags of faith, victorious over hate.