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March Slice of Life No. 30.   *   Poetry Friday

 

 

This week as I read  “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?” — an essay from God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis, words and phrases expressing uniquely Lewis’s thoughts about Jesus’ resurrection caught my attention. I wanted to preserve them. I highlighted them on my copy. I copied them into my journal. But I couldn’t let them rest. I decided to preserve them in the form of a found poem. So, with my thoughts turned toward the glorious story of Easter, I used the words of C.S. Lewis to compose “The Resurrection.”

The Resurrection

Strangest story of all,
story of the Resurrection,
get the story clear–
something perfectly new
in the history of the universe.

Christ defeated death:
the door which had been locked
for the first time, forced open,
distinct from mere ghost-survival,
not a picture of survival after death.

Something new appeared
in the universe,
a new mode of being–
that is the story.
What are we going to make of it?

God has come down 
Into the universe,
down to manhood
and come up again,
pulling it up with Him.
What are we to make of Christ?

You must accept
or reject the story.

Others say, This is truth;
He says, I am Truth.
Others, This is the way, the life;
He says, I am
the Way, the Life.

He says, Come to Me
everyone. I am Re-birth,
I am Life. I have overcome
the Universe. That is the issue,
the Resurrection Story.

© 2018 Alice Nine
A found poem from the words of C. S. Lewis

 

* * * * *

Writing about my writing
A found poem, in general, is created from words or phrases found in a single text. The creator of a found poem takes the words, phrases, and/or sentences from a text and reframes them as poetry by changing spacing and lines, by adding or deleting text. Some found poems change the original text in a profound and systematic way, even giving it new meaning. Others make little or no changes in the order of the words, the syntax of the original text, and the meaning.

When I created “The Resurrection,” I lifted words, phrases, and whole sentences from the essay. I kept them in the same order as they occur in the original text. I made no changes in the syntax. I did not add words. My contributions to the creation of the poem were to select the words, to choose line breaks, to determine stanzas, and to decide on capitalization and punctuation.

 

On reading C.S. Lewis


My paperback set of the Chronicles of Narnia is well-worn. I’ve read it to students.  I’ve read to grandkids. And two of my grandsons have borrowed it from my shelf many times.  I remember reading The Screwtape Letters in high school.  And I’ve turned to A Grief Observed when grappling with the issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss More recently, I have skimmed and read essays in God in the Dock.

 




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Poetry Friday Schedule
January – June 2018