This book’s title is taken from William Blake, who clearly understood that gods are a human creation, ‘poetic tales’. The subtitle is Logosofia, which means Word Wisdom and was coined by Coleridge. It combines the Greek words logos (masculine) and sophia (feminine).
Dinah Livingstone is a poet. Her book is a strong plea for the word-wisdom of poetry and myth, beginning with a long chapter on ‘The Necessity of Poetry’. Necessity? A strong word, she admits, for the majority in our culture who regard poetry as a peripheral activity. People are wary of poetry and poetic tales, especially rationalists on the one hand and fundamentalists on the other. This chapter has been developed from a talk for the Ethical Society and is a cogent argument. (It also happens to be an excellent introduction to how and why poems work, with detailed examples. I could commend it to any young student or aspiring poet. There are plenty of examples.) Poetry, Dinah stresses, is nothing if not earthy. The more precise it is about its physical referents, the stronger its effect. Not merely a bird, for instance, but a thrush, which ‘sings its song twice over’ (Browning) or displays its ‘terrifying…bounce and stab’ (Hughes).
Such words affect us viscerally, by their sound as well as their descriptive power. Poetry depends on simile and metaphor, such as personification. This urge to personify must have been at the root of primitive religion, with natural forces assumed to be spirits, demons, gods. This ‘supernaturalisation’ continues through history. Though gods may be shed along the way, emerging monotheistic faiths became even more sure of their poetic tales about a single ‘supernaturalised’ being.
Humans have this basic disposition to make up stories, tales to enchant or to warn. So powerful are the myths we conjure for ourselves that we believe them, live by them and need them even when we realize that we made them up. We know we invented gods and religions, but bearing that in mind we can, Dinah argues, still use our myths and liturgies. Poetry’s prime endeavour, according to Rilke, is to praise; and if we personify the values we praise it is easier to bring our whole hearts to the exercise.
This is a very Catholic view. Dinah’s background is Catholic and she refers appreciatively to Catholic rituals utterly mysterious to your reviewer. For this is a personal book.
Not only is it the book of a poet, but as readers of this journal know, its author has been deeply concerned in the struggles of Latin American peoples, notably the Sandinistas of Nicaragua and the Zapatistas of Mexico; she has translated much of their poetry. So expect references to all this.
The book follows a Trinitarian outline. In the section on the Father we encounter Dinah’s preference for a Mother Goddess whose worshippers are more likely to relate considerately to Mother Earth, our poor ill-treated planet. For Dinah the Son represents humanity, the Spirit humankindness. These chapters follow our Christian poetic tales through the New Testament. With admirable clarity she traces certain distinct myths. First came the Kingdom of God, the vision of the Jesus of the gospels. Paul develops this into the poetic symbol of the Body of Christ, equated with all his worshippers. Later come the Logos, the Incarnate Word; the Bride of Christ, in which those worshippers become the collective bride of the deified saviour; and the Beautiful City of Revelation.
Occasionally we discover Dinah Livingstone in fighting mode. She takes on Don Cupitt and the postmodernist philosophers. Postmodern nonrealism is described as ‘the ideal partner for an aggressive capitalism that commodifies the earth.’ About monotheist patriarchy she is less scathing but equally clear. The Father symbol, and even the Mother, are inadequate metaphors, for human parents may be good or bad.
Dinah’s ethical causes are care for the earth and the struggle for justice, especially for the poor who in the Beatitudes are meant to inherit that earth.
A fair familiarity with the New Testament and with English poetry would be useful in approaching this book, but it is not difficult to read and has much richness to offer.
Anne Ashworth’s publications include The Verb To Be is Everywhere Irregular (poetry) and The Oblique Light:
Poetry and Peak Experience (poetry and prose). She is a long-standing member of SOF. reviews The hurly burly of city life leaves little time for dreaming. We are, like it or not, here, now, in this time and this place and there is much to do. There are goals to be achieved and ideas to be explored. It takes a great poet, perhaps, or an artist to help us to ponder upon the environment in which we live: to stop us in our tracks. Tracks lead us back as well as forwards, as in T.S Eliot’s Four Quartets:
Anne Ashworth reviews Poetic Tales by Dinah Livingstone Katabasis (London 2010) . Pbk. 148 pages. £9.95.