Poetry and Transformation
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Peter E. Murphy, Poetry and Transformation, bahai-library.com.
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Poetry and                                       Resumen
Esta narrativa, basada en la experiencia de
Transformation                                   vida del autor, se enfoca en cómo la evolu-
ción de su atracción a y amor por la poesía
finalmente transformó su vida. Mezclado
PETER E. MURPHY                                  con esta historia personal reveladora está
el análisis del autor de cómo la relación
entre poesía y fe—especialmente en la
Abstract                                         manera en que la poesía se relaciona con la
This narrative, based on the life expe-          Palabra Revelada—puede tener un efecto
rience of the author, focuses on how his         dramático en la lucha de uno por lograr
evolving attraction to and love of poetry        la transformación personal en medio de
ultimately transformed his life. Blended         circunstancias preocupantes de crisis y tu-
with this revealing personal story is the        multo. El autor examina además la mane-
author’s assessment of how the relation-         ra en que al exponerse a este arte creativo
ship of poetry and faith—especially as           uno puede ser asistido en comprender y
poetry relates to the revealed word—can          aplicar la “Palabra Creativa”.
have a dramatic effect on one’s struggle
for personal transformation in the midst                            ONE
of troubling circumstances of crisis and
turmoil. In addition, the author examines        In the park surrounding the Imperial
the manner in which exposure to this cre-        War Museum in London, a large slab
ative art can assist one in comprehending
of concrete, twelve feet high by three
and applying the “Creative Word.”
feet wide, is slowly falling apart, expos-
ing its skeleton of rusted steel rebar.
Resumé
Cet article, fondé sur le vécu de l’auteur,      Despite its appearance and strength,
relate comment son intérêt pour la poésie        concrete is in motion. As soon as the
a évolué au point que son amour de cet art       molecules in the cement that bind it
a fini par transformer sa vie. Parallèlement     harden, they start to unfasten in a pro-
à ces révélations personnelles de l’auteur,      cess that can take hundreds of years.
l’article évalue comment le rapport à la         Poured in 1961, this slab is not old by
poésie et à la foi, en particulier le rapport    concrete standards and should be hold-
entre la poésie et la parole révélée, peut       ing up better, but it is a segment of the
avoir un effet retentissant sur la lutte de      Berlin Wall, which was constructed
l’individu pour sa transformation person-
quickly and cheaply. During the wall’s
nelle alors qu’il est aux prises avec des cir-
active duty, 136 people were killed
constances troublantes en période de crise
et de tourmente. De plus, l’auteur examine       trying to cross over from East to West
comment l’exposition à cet art créatif peut      Germany. Before the slab was retired
aider une personne à comprendre et à ap-         to this beautiful park it was painted
pliquer dans sa vie la « Parole créatrice ».     with graffiti. In one painting, a pair of
cartoon eyes overlooks a huge Rolling
8                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

Stones red tongue covered with white
letters that proclaim, “Change Your
Life.” The artist “Indiano,” who graf-
fitied much of the Berlin Wall, likely
chose these words from a sonnet by
Rilke that ends with the admonition,
“Du musst dein leben ändern,” or “You
must change your life” (“Archaic Torso
of Apollo” 14).
Like concrete, poetry is also in
transition—a poem is created over
many revisions that can take, for me
at least, decades before it is complete.
Unlike concrete, a poem is bound by
image and sound, metaphor and voice.
A poem, as Archibald MacLeish fa-
mously wrote in “Ars Poetica,” “should
not mean / But be” (23-24). My own
“Ars Poetica” reflects on the relation-
ship between the other concrete—the
one relating to the senses—and the
abstract.
ARS POETICA

The thin wires that brace the rods in place
are not that tough as I twist them
around bars of ribbed steel. And they quiver
when I slurp over them tons of redi-mix.

In Cardiff, I burned a winter chopping holes
through concrete. My jackhammer heated
then sliced the steel, knocked loose gray chunks,
snapped the slender wires like the bones of a finger.

As centuries tick, the stiff sides of buildings
conceal molecules of cement unbinding
into sand, aggregate, and water.

All the making becomes unmaking
that implodes silently, spewing light and heat
as it breaks back through the abstract.
(Many Mountains Moving 93)
Poetry and Transformation                             9

While the abstract is the subject       I say. I’d rather they argue. I need to
of poetry, it is also its enemy. The ab-   provoke them.
stract has no flesh, no blood, no thing.      “Who wants to dance?” I ask.
It is soul and spirit, incomprehensible       They look confused. I point to Lisa,
without form. The poet’s job is to give    a special education teacher in Camden.
the abstract a body, which can only be     She hesitates, terrified, then stands
done using physical language. Poems        and comes to the front of the room.
are little machines made out of words.     She wonders if she should have taken
If the words are not the right words,      oil painting instead.
the machine will not work. A success-         I arrange Lisa so that she is stand-
ful poem will offer a different expe-      ing two feet in front of me. I say, “I
rience each time an attentive reader       am a writer and you are my reader. Are
engages with it. And without the at-       you ready?”
tentive reader, a poem, no matter how         She nods her head. She’s game. I look
well crafted, will be meaningless. As      her in the eye, squeeze her hands, and
William Carlos Williams portrays in        say, “Don’t drink and drive.”
“Asphodel, That Greeny Flower,”               “What?” she says.
“If you drink and drive,” I continue,
It is difficult              “you are going to crash your car and
to get the news from poems                 kill yourself and someone else. Do you
yet men die miserably every day      understand?”
for lack                        Lisa nods her head again.
of what is found there. (161–65)              “Did you know that in 2010, 10,228
people in the United States died in
TWO                       drunk driving crashes? You don’t
want to be one of them, do you? No,
I am standing in front of a group of       of course not. Do not drink and drive.
teachers who want to write poetry.         OK?”
They have given up two weeks of               Lisa giggles nervously. The other
their summer vacation to attend the        teachers are laughing, relieved I didn’t
Artist Teacher Institute at the Rich-      pick them.
ard Stockton College of New Jersey,           “Very good,” I say. “Lisa is my per-
cosponsored by Arts Horizons and the       fect reader. She gets that my story is
New Jersey State Council on the Arts.      factual and without ambiguity. I don’t
They will write poems while others         want to confuse her with metaphor. I
in the institute are painting, dancing,    want her to clearly understand what I
and making books, collages, and dig-       am writing, to consider it, and to be-
ital photographs. These teachers are       have accordingly.”
enthusiastic, earnest, smart, and ex-         I lift Lisa’s hand and point out how
hausted. They write down everything        we are joined.
10                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

“Your job as a writer is to connect     the words I have written.
with your reader. But this is nonfic-          “Let’s complicate the story.” Plac-
tion. How does the relationship be-        ing my palms against Lisa’s palms, I
tween writer and reader change when        say, “Let’s make believe that Charles
writing imaginatively?”                    has just left a party, say, in Philadel-
I turn back to Lisa. “OK, let’s dance   phia. He gets in his Subaru, turns on
again,” I say, and I place my palms        the ignition, and is driving home on
against her palms. “I am going to tell     the Atlantic City Expressway when he
you a story. It’s a true story. I made     realizes he is drunk. As the writer, I
it up a long time ago. Do you believe      have to describe what is going on in
me?”                                       Charles’ mind so that Lisa, the reader,
Lisa, confused, smiles nervously as     can understand it. If I’m successful,
I move our palms around and around         she will feel and think what I intend
in a circle as the other teachers giggle   her to feel and think. Lisa, again, is my
like fourth graders.                       perfect reader. She has to work harder,
“How shall I begin?” I say aloud.       but notice how she is keeping up with
“It is a dark and stormy night, and my     me.”
character—let’s call him Charles—is            I let go of Lisa’s hands and she
driving home from work when his car        looks relieved and heads for her seat.
breaks down. A kind stranger stops         But before she gets there, I say, “Not
and offers Charles a ride. Grateful, he    so fast. I want you to read my poem.”
gets in the car, buckles up. Charles is        “Oh, no,” she complains, “can’t you
not in the car very long when he re-       pick on someone else?” But she turns
alizes that the driver is drunk. My job    back toward me and raises her hands. I
as the writer is to show you, the read-    raise my hands above my head and say,
er, what Charles, an invention of my       “Read my poem.”
imagination, is seeing, thinking, and          As she reaches toward my hands, I
feeling.”                                  pull them farther away.
I lead Lisa in a little dance. Our          “Hold still!” she demands, as if I
hands are palm to palm, and as I slow-     were one of her unruly students. The
ly move mine around in a circle, hers      other teachers laugh.
move with me.                                  “What’s wrong?” I ask the class.
“Again, Lisa is my perfect reader,      “Why can’t she ‘get’ my poem?”
but this time, she has to work harder          “She’s trying,” a teachers says, “but
than when I was writing factually. I’m     it’s out of reach.”
not telling her what to think or what          “That’s right,” I say. “Lisa is trying,
to do. I am using description, narra-      but my poem is too private, too per-
tive, and dialogue to explore the com-     sonal. It’s impossible to understand it.
plex emotions that my reader can only      This is a not a good poem.”
understand and appreciate through              I lower my hands to face level and
Poetry and Transformation                              11

start moving them slowly in a circle.       lateral, rather than literal, thinking. It
Lisa raises her hands to grab them,         requires being comfortable with ambi-
but mine slowly move away. Her hands        guity, what Keats called ‘Negative Ca-
mirror the movement of my hands.            pability,’ which he defined as ‘being in
Occasionally they touch, but they are       uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, with-
always in proximity. My hands move.         out any irritable reaching after fact
Hers move with mine. Our hands keep         and reason’ (Keats 43). Teachers are
moving.                                     often afraid of poetry because there is
“How’s this?” I ask.                    no answer key, and when they do teach
“She’s trying,” one teacher says.       it, they frequently present a poem as a
“She’s almost there.”                       puzzle that is to be solved rather than
Another says, “Even though she’s        language to be experienced.”
not touching, I think she’s getting it.”        The teachers nod their heads. They
“You’re right,” I agree. “This is a     have been there. But they are here
good poem, and Lisa is a good read-         now, and they want to learn to read
er. While she may not understand            and write poetry, and to teach it so
or appreciate everything the poem is        that their students will not tune them
offering, she is getting a lot out of it    out when they do.
because she is trying hard. Metaphor            “I am going to recite a poem. It’s
doesn’t reveal itself easily. If my poem    deep—very deep,” I say dramatically.
is about sorrow, perhaps this reader is     I raise my hands, making an exagger-
feeling one of its cousins, sadness or      ated gesture, look into their eyes, and
grief. If my poem is exploring spiri-       say, “I am lonely.” They stare at me.
tuality, perhaps the reader feels some-     Nothing. I wipe my eyes as if tearful
thing like devotion or reverence. E.        and fake hurt feelings. “Oh, you stu-
E. Cummings titled one of his early         pid people, you. I poured out my soul.
books, Is 5, which is the answer to the     I expressed myself. I told you how I
common mathematical question, ‘2+2          felt, and you just looked at me. I will
equals?’ If you’re a physicist and are      recite my poem again, and this time,
trying to land a rocket on Jupiter, 2       I hope you will be sensitive enough to
plus 2 better equal 4 or you’re going to    understand it.”
miss Jupiter by a billion miles. Howev-         I raise my hands in an even more
er, if you’re writing a poem that is try-   exaggerated gesture and repeat, “I am
ing to explore the universe of human        lonely.” I am making a fool of myself.
thought, emotion, and spirit, 2+2=5         The teachers are enjoying this, espe-
will get you close enough.”                 cially Lisa.
Lisa returns to her seat as her col-        “So, what’s wrong with my poem?”
leagues applaud.                            I ask.
“This is why people, even educated          Lamar, who teaches in Atlantic
people, don’t read poetry. It requires      City, says, “You just said how you feel,
12                  The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

Murph. That’s not a poem. That’s a             tree . . . car. Then you hear that heart-
Hallmark Card.”                                breaking second line and you see the
“Exactly. And like most greeting           tree without leaves in your backyard
cards, it is clichéd and sentimental. My       or in the forest, perhaps the only tree
poem offers nothing original, but the          without leaves, or maybe they are all
greater problem is that it is abstract.”       without leaves, and then the strip mall,
“Abstract?” Lamar asks. “I thought         car . . . car . . . tree without leaves . . .
poems are supposed to be abstract.”            car. The point is that you can see it,
“Poems are about the great ab-             and because your senses are aroused,
stractions: beauty, death, failure, faith,     you can also feel it. The poem has be-
friendship, God, honor, loss, love,            come part of you.
truth, etc.; but in order to render               “Poems that only express are writ-
these abstractions you must use con-           ten on one level. They are too accessi-
crete words that appeal to the senses,         ble and shallow. They are not written
SSSTT.”                                        with much attention to craft. Poets
“SSSTT?” Lamar repeats.                    who merely express themselves wind
“Yes, Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch,          up boring whatever audience they
Taste. Everything we know, we have             may have and, eventually, they bore
learned through our five senses. This          themselves. In his “Preface to Lyri-
is the animal part of us. Once we have         cal Ballads,” Wordsworth wrote that
taken in the experience of the world,          ‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow
we use our mind and our spirit to dis-         of powerful feelings . . . recollected in
cover and reveal thoughts and emo-             tranquility’ (Lyrical Ballads 42). Recol-
tions. We create the world after the           lection or reflection is usually part of
world allows us to know it, and we can         the revision process, and that’s where
only know it through the senses.”              craft comes in.”
I wait a moment. They are thinking            “I know what revision is,” Lamar
this over.                                     says, “but what do you mean by it?”
“Let me revise my poem,” I say. “I            “Revision doesn’t mean to correct
am a tree / without leaves.”                   or to fix a piece of writing. That’s
The teachers make the kind of              editing. Revision means to re-see. Po-
sound I hear when a poem connects              ems have a life cycle, just like people.
with an audience.                              Your first draft is like a newborn baby
“It’s still a bad poem, but it’s a great   leaking at both ends, or as Shakespeare
revision. It doesn’t tell you what to          wrote in As You Like It, ‘Mewling and
think or feel. It presents you with an         puking, in the nurse’s arms’ (2.7.147).
image that allows you to make mean-            You don’t say it’s a bad baby because
ing out of it. Picture the tree, perhaps       it can’t walk or talk, and you don’t
in your backyard, perhaps in a forest,         ‘correct’ it. What do you do? You clean
perhaps in a strip mall, car . . . car . . .   it up and you love it. This is revision,
Poetry and Transformation                             13

and as you revise, your poem grows            secret forces you to write close to the
smarter and stronger. It begins to            bone, creating a sense of intimacy that
walk and gets in trouble. When it tries       will connect with your reader. The
to stick its fingers into the wall socket,    lie—by which I mean, use your imag-
you have to discipline your poem and          ination—cloaks anything too private
say, ‘No.’ As you continue revising, the      with something fanciful. This is what
poem grows into adolescence, becomes          leads to discovery and surprise. And
rebellious and says ‘no’ to you. Maybe        to paraphrase Frost, if there’s no sur-
you’ve written fifteen drafts, maybe          prise in the writer, there’s no surprise
you’ve written fifty. Robert Hayden           in the reader. You want your read-
wrote almost one hundred drafts of            er to discover something new when
“Those Winter Sundays.” If you work           they read your poem. Otherwise why
hard and are patient and lucky, your          should they bother?
poem might become an adult and go                “Does anyone else have a question?”
out into the world and be published.             “So, Murph,” Lamar asks, picking
Then it will take care of you when you        up his notebook, “how did you become
are old, can’t walk, can’t talk, and are      a poet?”
leaking at both ends.”
It is lunchtime. Time to break.                            THREE
“OK, let me give you an assignment.
I want you to write a lousy first draft.      My father, Eddie Murphy, was prob-
Can you do that?”                             ably the only longshoreman in New
They laugh. “We can do that,               York City who aspired to perform at
Murph,” Lamar says.                           Carnegie Hall. Although he attend-
“Write a poem that questions some-         ed high school for just a few months
thing you believe in. Include in it an        before his father pulled him out to
office supply and the title of a song.        work on the docks—it was the De-
Also tell a secret and tell a lie, and nev-   pression—he loved classical music
er tell anyone which is which.”               and saved enough to buy a used piano,
“What?” they shout in unison.              which he stuffed into his bedroom in
“Forget the office supply and song         a small apartment overlooking 18th
for a moment,” Lisa complains. “You           Street and 10th Avenue. After World
want me to tell a secret?”                    War II broke out, he enlisted in the
“Yes. Any other questions?”                army and was stationed in Newport,
“But a secret?” Lisa interrupts.           Wales, unloading ships that fueled
She’s not going to let me get away            the D-Day invasion. When one of his
with this. “That’s something you don’t        longshoreman buddies discovered that
tell anyone. Why would you ask us to          a nearby pub, the Windsor Castle Ho-
do that?”                                     tel, had classical music, Eddie stopped
“I’ve also asked you to tell a lie. The    in. He was disappointed that the music
14                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

was recorded, not live, but when the       me because I didn’t know how to make
beautiful young woman behind the           my bed. One night at dinner, she beat
bar asked what he wanted to drink, he      me again to make me eat sweet pota-
didn’t want classical music anymore.       toes that were nauseating me. When
He wanted her.                             I vomited them up on my plate, she
Thelma Elias Samuel lived in a          made me eat that too. After relatives in
tiny room in a tower at the top of the     Queens took us in and sent us to a pub-
pub managed by her older sister and        lic school, I thought they had changed
brother-in-law. Eddie asked Thelma         my religion from Catholic to Public. I
to go to the cinema with him, but she      didn’t know what sins the Publics be-
refused. He persisted for months until     lieved in and was afraid of accidently
she finally gave in, and they became       committing a Public sin and winding
engaged in May 1944, a few weeks be-       up in Public Hell. A few years later
fore D-Day. Eddie stormed Normandy         at another Catholic school, a popular
and survived, but he was wounded in        priest invited me to his rectory office
Belgium a few months later and sent        on Saturday mornings. After locking
home. After the war, he returned to        the door, he wrestled with me. At first,
Wales to marry Thelma. They moved          he let me win, but then he “wrestled”
to New York, where my older brother        dirty, and I felt dirty, but he said it
was born in 1948, and Eddie made the       wasn’t dirty and not to tell anyone,
transition from working on the wa-         so I didn’t tell anyone. But I felt dirty
terfront to operating cranes and other     anyway and knew I was going to Hell.
heavy equipment in the city’s booming          At fifteen, I decided that I could re-
construction industry. Thelma wasn’t       main a Catholic or I could be happy. I
happy being so far from her family, so     decided to be happy, and stopped trying
they moved back to Newport, where          to believe. I started writing poetry, and
I was born in 1950. She wasn’t happy       I started drinking. I drank at parties
living so close to her family, so we re-   and started hanging out with friends.
turned to New York. Then we returned       Then I started drinking alone. My fa-
to Newport. Then back to New York. I       ther had remarried, and my religious
crossed the Atlantic three times in my     stepmother put coins under the stat-
first three years. Thelma, unhappy in      uettes in her bedroom, which I tapped
Wales, unhappy in the United States,       each month for drinking money. While
finally took her life when I was seven.    the lesser saints might only have a
Because my father couldn’t take         nickel or a dime, St. Christopher, her
care of us, my brother and I got           favorite, was good for a quarter, and
moved around, attending four differ-       the Virgin Mary usually gave up fifty
ent elementary schools. At a boarding      cents. Not much, but a quart of beer
school on Staten Island, a nun made        cost only thirty-five cents back then.
me take off my clothes before beating      While she usually caught me doing
Poetry and Transformation                            15

other things, she never questioned me       record. I was proud of myself. Then
about the statuette’s money. I think        I started drinking again, and “It can’t
she believed that the saints accepted       get any worse!” got worse. I was edi-
her gifts to buy whatever extras they       tor of the yearbook and kept the dark-
might need in Heaven.                       room refrigerator stocked with beer
Two years later, I decided I could be   purchased with money from selling
happy or I could be a poet, so I chose      yearbook subscriptions, which I failed
to be a poet. I hadn’t read much poetry     to repay because I was fired from my
and didn’t know of any poets except         after-school job for showing up drunk.
for Dylan Thomas, famous for being          After high school I flunked out of three
Welsh, for being drunk, and for dying       colleges in three semesters. The only
young. My man! I believed that living       decent grade I earned was in a theol-
life gritty would make me a better          ogy class, where I wrote a paper on
poet. If I experienced all aspects of       poetry and religion. I used examples
the world, I could better express my        from Ginsburg, Ferlinghetti, and oth-
feelings about it. When I came across       er “Beats” to argue that religion was
Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl”—so honest-          choking society while poetry opened a
ly degenerate, so morally depraved, so      conduit of human thought, emotion,
human—I could feel a heart beating in       and spirit that not only liberated the
every line.                                 poet but would also unite people in an
My father, a drinker himself, re-       enlightened community.
ferred to New Year’s Eve as “Amateur           I stopped using capital letters in my
Night,” and as a senior in high school,     writing because I thought they were
I was an amateur on New Year’s Eve          unjust. Why should one word be cap-
1968. I didn’t remember much, but           italized and not another? The names
what I did remember, shooting heroin,       of days and months are capitalized,
terrified me. Here’s the conclusion of      but the names of the seasons aren’t.
a poem I wrote.                             Shouldn’t they be equal? I also didn’t
use punctuation. Instead, I left a small
There’s more here, living, than           space where a comma should be and a
to meet at the bar.                   longer space for a period. Surprisingly,
If I can go straight for a little         my professor, a Franciscan Priest, ig-
while,                                nored that.
Who knows?                                   My brother was serving in Viet-
Better things may come and I              nam. I wanted to support him, but as
May find them.                            the war went on I couldn’t see that it
It can’t get any worse!                   had any purpose. I marched in demon-
(unpublished manuscript)         strations, but when fights broke out on
a picket line at the Washington Monu-
I didn’t drink for three weeks, a         ment, I realized that protesting wasn’t
16                  The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

the answer. Trouble is, I didn’t know         received a note from Howard Moss,
what was.                                     who encouraged me to write more and
After college number three let me          to try him again. I didn’t realize how
go, I decided to be near what I loved,        rare it was to get a personal note from
which was drinking, and got a job             the poetry editor of the New Yorker.
tending bar at a night club in Queens. I      I tried a few more times, and How-
took writing workshops at the YMCA            ard Moss continued to write person-
on 92nd Street with two well-known            al notes, but my poems were getting
poets and usually showed up sober,            worse, not better, and eventually I
but not sober enough to learn any-            gave up. God bless you, Howard Moss.
thing. I read poetry, but not enough to       You tried.
understand anything. I worked on my              At nineteen I got engaged to a
poems, but not enough to make them            young woman who was in worse shape
any better. Despite this lack of effort,      than I was. She came into the club
I considered myself a poet. When I            where I worked a few days after she
read at an open mic at a bar in Man-          was released from rehab, where she’d
hattan, a drunk yelled, “Take it all off !”   kicked her heroin habit, and both our
Obviously, he knew I was an imposter.         lives spiraled downhill from there. I
I wrote a series of “bar” poems. This         tried to break it off, but I kept going
one, perhaps, was the most successful.        back. Break off. Go back. Break off.
Go back. This lasted almost two years
FLORIDA (FOR RATSO)                 before I realized I would have to go
far away to get away. Although I was
A man fainted tonight.                  born in Wales, I didn’t know anything
I asked him to get up—nothing.          about it. I had no other ideas, so I got a
I loosened his collar and placed        passport, quit my job, and on Septem-
ammonia under his nose.                 ber 11, 1971, a week before my twen-
His shoes came off and then some.       ty-first birthday, I took off. I stayed in
His wallet told me nothing.             the British Isles for almost a year. It
I kicked him—                           was the smartest thing I’d ever done
He ignored me.                          in my stupid life.
I lay down next to him                     As I was hitchhiking in West Wales,
demanding that he listen to reason.     a driver dropped me off in a village
I put my head on his chest.             whose name I could not pronounce
and told me the locals recited poetry
I lay there, still                      there at night. The pub was noisy. A
waiting.                                dozen men were arguing in Welsh.
(unpublished manuscript)                They stopped as I walked to the bar.
Welsh nationalists had been trying to
I sent it to the New Yorker and          preserve their native language from
Poetry and Transformation                             17

becoming extinct and their culture             A few months later, December
from becoming diluted by England,           1971, I was hitchhiking through Lon-
their powerful neighbor to the east.        donderry so unaware of my surround-
While a few protests were violent—          ings that I didn’t realize Northern
most notably an attempted bombing to        Ireland was at war. This was a month
disrupt the investiture of the Prince       or so before “Bloody Sunday,” when
of Wales in 1969—most were peace-           soldiers shot twenty-six people during
ful. A popular strategy was painting        a peaceful demonstration, killing four-
over English street signs so non-           teen of them. I wanted to head down
Welsh drivers would get lost.               to Limerick to see what I could find
“May I have a pint, please?”             out about the “limericks.” I got a ride
The man behind the bar didn’t            from two men in a three-wheeled milk
move. There was something Dodge             truck; they agreed to take me to the
City about this place, and it was as if I   Irish border near Donegal. From there
had walked in wearing a black hat.          it was a straight run down the coast.
“Where are you from, lad?”               The men were angry, but because their
I turned around. One of the men          brogues were so thick, I wasn’t sure
stood there.                                why, until finally I understood: that
“New York,” I answered.                  morning in the Bogside, the Catholic
“You’re American?”                       neighborhood where they lived, sol-
“Yes.”                                   diers had shot two of their friends.
“You’re not English?”                       All over the city were barriers
If I knew better, I would have said,     manned by British soldiers armed
“Screw the English.” Instead, I said,       with automatic weapons. Each time
“No, American.”                             we came to one—and they were fre-
“What are you doing in Wales?”           quent—the driver cursed at the sol-
“Hitchhiking around. I heard you         diers who studied us as we drove
might have a poetry reading tonight.”       slowly around a maze and over speed
“So you like poetry?”                    bumps. When we reached the last of
“Yes.”                                   these barricades, kids began throwing
He hesitated, looked around, made        rocks at the soldiers who were lifting
a decision, and said, “OK. We need to       their weapons. The driver sped up—to
finish our business, and then we’ll give    distract them? To take the fire? I didn’t
you some poetry. Shouldn’t be long.”        know—and he ran the maze at thirty
He went back to the other men, and       miles an hour instead of the posted
they resumed arguing. I turned around       five. When I heard gunfire I hunkered
and there was a pint of beer on the bar.    down, trying to make myself as small
I didn’t know what they were arguing        a target as possible. While I didn’t
about, but I had a feeling it was about     believe in God, I am sure I must have
more than spray-painting street signs.      prayed. The driver stopped his truck
18                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

a few miles down the road, pointed to      a rocket ship or that the halo around
the west, and said, “Run!”                 the babe in the manger was a space
I ran.                                  helmet. I told him what happened in
Safely over the border in the Repub-    Londonderry, and we both agreed the
lic of Ireland, I dropped my backpack      world would be better without reli-
and allowed myself to feel both fear       gion. Mathew and I recognized each
and anger. I thought it unfair to be       other as outsiders. Neither of us was
shot at in a war that had nothing to       happy with our lives, our families, our
do with me, a war I didn’t even know       societies. We wanted lives that made
was going on. And how stupid! Both         sense, lives that connected and had
sides were killing each other over a       meaning. We probably listened to too
God that didn’t exist. While I didn’t      much John Lennon, who was at the top
know much about it, I could appreciate     of the charts,
the war two years earlier between the
Muslims and the Jews because they be-          Imagine there’s no heaven
lieved in different Gods. Catholics and        It’s easy if you try
Protestants believed in the same one.          ...
They are on the same team. Obviously,          Imagine all the people
I was unaware of the Reformation and           Sharing all the world.
the long history of hatred between             (“Imagine”)
them. Then I had an idea. “Why are
we killing each other because of our       As Mathew left to sketch in front of
religions, our nationalities, our races?   the church, I went in pursuit of the
Why can’t we see that we’re all human      limerick, which took me to an old
beings?” I’m brilliant! I thought. I had   two-story building. On one floor was a
an original idea. I knew it was original   library and the other a museum, both
because I’d never heard it before. Then    tended by a little old lady who had
I found a pub and drowned my origi-        never heard of limericks. “Can you re-
nal idea and my brilliance.                cite one for me?” she asked. The only
I checked in at the youth hostel in     ones I could think of were too dirty,
Limerick, where I met a young Dub-         so I said no and left. I wandered down
liner named Mathew Kennedy. He was         to the River Shannon and sat on the
a sidewalk artist who set up outside St.   bank looking at the water. The river
Augustine’s Church and sketched na-        was beautiful, in a gray, ashy kind of
tivity scenes with chalk. He despised      way. The sky was gray too, and the
what he called the “old fakers” who        air reeked of smoke from coal fires
flocked into the church to make deals      used to heat the houses. I liked the
with God. Unless you looked closely        smell. I was a city kid. Growing up in
at his sketches, you wouldn’t notice       New York, my only experience with
that the tree in the background was        anything close to a countryside was
Poetry and Transformation                            19

the occasional expedition into Cen-          strange—“The Emperor of Ice
tral Park, where, once, while playing        Cream,” “The Man on the Dump,” “An-
softball (drunk, of course), I fell into     ecdote of the Jar,” “Disillusionment of
a manhole. However, since traveling          Ten O’Clock,” and my favorite, “Thir-
in the United Kingdom and Ireland, I         teen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”
was beginning to like nature.                The imagery fascinated me: “I was of
The first person to take me seri-         three minds, / Like a tree / In which
ously as a poet was Hubert Babinski, a       there are three blackbirds” (3-6).
professor at college number two, who            I think I liked Williams’ poems most
encouraged me not just to write but to       of all. They didn’t have the flashiness
read poetry. He introduced me to the         of Hopkins’ language or the mystery
poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins,              of Stevens’ imagery, but I felt I un-
Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos          derstood them in a more organic way.
Williams. I read Hopkins’ poems over         In his poem, “The Manoeuvre,” while
and over. I didn’t like that they were       watching starlings land on telephone
religious, but his poems were wild,          wires on a windy day, Williams inter-
and when I read “Pied Beauty,” “The          rupts himself to say, “that’s what got
Windhover,” and “God’s Grandeur”             me—to / face into the wind’s teeth”
aloud, my mouth was happy.                   (7-8). “[T]hat’s what got me—” he
wrote like I talked. I didn’t know poet-
And for all this, nature is never          ry could do that!
spent;                                       Hubert told me that these artists’
There lives the dearest               poems were driven by sound and im-
freshness deep down things;               age compared to Ferlinghetti and
And though the last lights of the          Ginsburg, who used narrative to move
black West went                           their poems. I hadn’t thought about
Oh, morning, at the brown             “moving” a poem before. I just wrote
brink eastward, springs—                  what was floating around in my head.
Because the Holy Ghost over the               I read these poems repeatedly, try-
bent                                      ing to make sense of them in those
World broods with warm                rare periods when I wasn’t drunk.
breast and with ah! bright                Hubert helped me see where my own
wings. (“God’s Grandeur” 9–14)            poems were original and interesting,
and where they were not. I realized
I loved that “ah!” stopping the flow      that the poems I wrote while high
of the poem to emphasize the last            were not as good as I’d hoped. This
two words, “Bright wings.” I wished I        troubled me. How could I “expand my
could buy a pair. I didn’t understand        consciousness” if the poems I wrote
Stevens, but I loved the authority of        while stoned weren’t as good as the
his voice, and his titles were brilliantly   ones I wrote when straight? One of
20                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

my efforts, written under the influence,   was Wordsworth. He looked old. I
made a gerund out of every word.           picked up a book and read that he had
died in 1850. Wordsworth is one of
Driving toing Buffaloing                 those dead poets I despised without
alonging theing Newing Yorking           ever having read. That stupid shep-
Thruwaying . . .                         herd tricked me, I thought, so who’s
(unpublished manuscript)         the stupid one?
I bought the cheapest book there, A
When I told Hubert I was going          Choice of Wordsworth’s Verse, for sixty
to Wales, he suggested that I stop at      pence, and hiked back to Ambleside.
the Lake District if I found myself in     I read all the poems in the book, and
Northern England. I planned to stay        everything did a flip-flop because I
there one night on my way up to Loch       loved Wordsworth. I was shocked. He
Ness to look for the monster. After        wrote mostly about nature, but that’s
checking into the hostel at Ambleside,     not really what he was writing about.
I met a shepherd who asked me what         He was writing about emotions that I
I did. I said, “I am a poet,” which is a   recognized: joy, excitement, fear, won-
ridiculous thing to say, especially to a   der, despair.
stranger.                                     Some of the poems, such as “Mi-
“A poet, are you?” he said. “What       chael,” “Nutting,” and “She was a
do you think of our poet, William          Phantom of Delight,” were about peo-
Wordsworth?”                               ple very different than me, but I felt
“Never heard of him.”                   like I knew them. I was moved most by
“Never heard of him? Well then,”        a poem about Tintern Abbey in Wales.
the shepherd said, “you should go pay      Wordsworth was trying to relive the
him a visit.”                              excitement of his first visit there five
“Where does he live?”                   years earlier:
“Walk along this path. His house is
just a bit down the road in Grasmere.”       I came among these hills; when
I decided to visit this William             like a roe
Wordsworth. Maybe he would offer             I bounded o’er the mountains, by
me a cup of tea and a biscuit. I walked        the sides
“a bit down the road,” which turned          Of the deep rivers, and the lonely
out to be three miles, when I saw a            streams,
sign saying “Wordsworth Cottage.”            Wherever nature led: more like
Wow, I thought, intimidated, he’s got          a man
a sign. Inside, a woman welcomed             Flying from something that he
me. Was this Mrs. Wordsworth? The              dreads, than one
walls were full of books for sale and        Who sought the thing he loved. . .
pictures of somebody whom I figured          (“Tintern Abbey” 68-73)
Poetry and Transformation                             21

Traveling alone through Wales and       sacredness of the ordinary. Williams
the Lake District, I realized how much      wrote, “No ideas but in things” (“Pa-
I liked nature; no, it was more than        terson” 15). He probably would not
nature—it was the whole universe of         have gotten there if Wordsworth
what I had been seeing, hearing, smell-     hadn’t come up with “whereby ordi-
ing, and feeling but did not have the       nary things should be presented to the
language to understand. Wordsworth          mind in an unusual aspect” (“Preface
was giving me that language, and I          to Lyrical Ballads”).
loved him for it.                              Forget the Loch Ness monster, I
When I read “Intimations of Im-         thought, as my one day in the Lake
mortality,” I recognized the phrase,        District turned into a three-week
“The child is father of the man,”1 and      excursion. I walked, as Wordsworth
realized that Al Kooper from Blood,         walked, from Ambleside to Grasmere
Sweat, and Tears was quoting Word-          to Cockermouth to Coniston to Hawk-
sworth when he used it as the title of      shead to Kendal to Rydall Mount and
the band’s first album. Al Kooper and       back to Ambleside, all the while read-
Wordsworth—amazing. I connected             ing and rereading his poems. I felt as
to a nature poet dead 120 years and         though my brain was getting bigger,
wondered how this could happen. I           the opposite of blacking out after
walked back to Grasmere the next            drinking, which I was trying to do less
morning and put down three pounds,          and less. Back in Grasmere, I wrote
fifty pence—half my weekly budget—          a nine-page elegy to Wordsworth,
on Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems,         the longest poem I had ever written.
and read them and reread them. I was        “Eight Yew Trees” was set in the
excited as Wordsworth ranted against        cemetery where he planted them and
the “vicious poetic diction” of the past,   where he, his wife, his sister, and a few
while pledging to bring his own lan-        of his children were buried. My poem
guage near to the language of men:          concludes,
“an indistinct perception perpetually
renewed of language closely resem-            . . . Your place is simple,
bling that of real life” (Lyrical Ballads     A monument of stone
42). I didn’t realize how radical this        Chipped from local rock
was at the time, but it’s this kind of                  by a local craftsman
boldness that attracted me to poetry          Who knew your disdain for
in the first place. Reading the preface            public sepulchers
reminded me of the poems I read by            And what could not compare
William Carlos Williams, which were           To yew tree memorials
also written the way people speak.                      as lasting as your poems.
Both poets seemed to celebrate the            (unpublished manuscript)
1 A Choice of Wordsworth’s Verse, p. 91.
22                 The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

This was strange. I wasn’t writ-          but they were so nice. They said they
ing about myself. I was writing about        had a new religion and that there were
someone else’s suffering and how, de-        fifty of them in the world. Or maybe
spite the decomposition of the body, it      they said there were fifty in Ireland or
might be possible through language to        Limerick? I don’t know, but they gave
live on after death—what Wordsworth          me this card and invited me to come to
was obsessed with: immortality.              a meeting tomorrow.”
Limerick was not a beautiful city,            We studied the card, which had a
but the river, the sky, the buildings, the   handwritten quotation neither of us
coal smoke—I was overcome. A great           could understand.
and brutal weight had been lifted from            “It’s a religion,” I said. “They’ll just
me. Like Wordsworth encountering             start another war.”
a supernatural presence on Mount                 After thinking about it, Mathew
Snowdon, I felt something breath-            said, “Yes, Peter, but there’s only fifty.
taking and magical at the bank of            Maybe we can talk them out of it.”
the River Shannon, something much                “Maybe,” I said, “they’ll offer us a
greater than anything human I had            cup of tea.”
come across. I didn’t know the word              Then I showed Mathew my poem
“awesome,” but that’s what it was. I         about the Holy Spirit. “It’s astonish-
took out my notebook and wrote,              ing,” he said. “I know exactly what you
mean. There’s something profound
Here, Holy Spirit.                         about Limerick. Maybe this new reli-
There, Holy Spirit.                        gion has something to do with it.”
Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit.         Something was profound about
Sea gulls, Holy Spirit.                    Limerick. Five years earlier, a young
Gray sky, Holy Spirit.                     woman from Belfast, Lesley Gibson
Coal smoke, Holy Spirit.                   (Taherzadeh), had moved in, becom-
Rocks, cars, dogs.                         ing the first Bahá’í to live there. She
Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit.     worked as a speech therapist at a hospi-
(unpublished manuscript)          tal for children with special needs. She
was joined a few months later by Gil-
Like Hopkins, I had written a poem        lian Phillips from Wales. The Catholic
about the Holy Ghost, a religious            Church was the law of the land, and
poem. What kind of atheist was I? I          Lesley and Gillian didn’t want to stir
wanted to see if Mathew could make           up trouble, so they lived quiet Bahá’í
sense of it. Before I could show him         lives. They prayed together, made
my poem, he said, “Peter, I met these        friends, and gradually introduced
people, and something amazing hap-           their new friends to the Bahá’í Faith.
pened. I wasn’t very polite to them          Another Bahá’í, Stanley Wrout, moved
when they said they liked my drawing,        to Limerick from England in 1970,
Poetry and Transformation                            23

but he drowned just three months af-       then I noticed three older women and
ter settling in. His death galvanized      thought, no, they can’t be high, not
Gillian and Lesley, who met every          with the old ladies around.
Tuesday evening in a “fireside,” and          I sat on the floor and asked a guy
prayed that others might attend. As        next to me, “What’s this about?”
more Bahá’ís from the United States           “The Earth is one country,” he said,
and the British Isles moved to Lim-        “and mankind its citizens.”
erick, they formed a Local Spiritual          “What?” I said, startled. “That’s my
Assembly in April 1971. One Tuesday        idea. I thought of it last week. Where
night Lesley’s fireside was inundated      did you get it from?”
by a group of longhaired young peo-           “Bahá’u’lláh wrote it over a hundred
ple who were part of a band, “Jeremi-      years ago.”
ah Henry.” that was popular in Ireland        “Who?” I didn’t understand what
at the time. They all became Bahá’ís       he said. With his brogue, it sounded
that night. When Mathew met Lesley         to me like “Bahooligan.” I asked him
on the street two months later, there      to repeat the name several times but
were fifty Bahá’ís in Limerick. Soon       still didn’t get it, so I called his guy
there would be hundreds.                   the “Big B.”
As more locals became Bahá’ís,             He said that Bahá’u’lláh was the
there was a backlash from the clergy,      fulfillment of each of the world’s re-
who preached against it from their         ligions, not just Christianity, but Ju-
pulpits. This actually helped spread       daism, Islam, Hindu, and Buddhism
awareness of the Faith. When one           as well. “Bahá’ís believe in bringing
young woman told her grandmother           the world together and eliminating
she had become a Bahá’í, she respond-      prejudice.”
ed, “Oh yes, I heard about them. They         This can’t be a religion, I thought.
seem nice.” Another young woman            It makes too much sense. When I ar-
became a Bahá’í when her friends did.      gued that religion causes more wars
After her parish priest confronted her     than it prevents, he told me that ‘Ab-
and demanded that she give it up, she      du’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh, said
decided to think for herself, remained     that if two people are arguing about
a Bahá’í, and was the first pioneer to     religion, they’re both wrong.
the city of Wexford. Limerick was on          “If this faith becomes the source of
fire, a Bahá’í fire, and while we didn’t   disunity it should be disbanded.”
realize it, Mathew and I were about to        “You’re kidding.”
be touched by its flames.                     “No.”
When we arrived at the house the           “But you believe in God, right?
next day, we found a mob of young          That can’t be good.”
people there. They all seemed so hap-         “The Bahá’í concept,” he explained,
py, I thought they were on drugs. But      “is that God is an unknowable essence.
24                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

No matter what we say about Him,            widow of a famous Bahá’í the group
Her, or It, it’s just our imagination.      referred to as a “Hand of the Cause.”2
We can only know what the Manifes-             “What happened to the rest of
tations tell us.”                           him?” I asked.
“Manifestations?”                           The women laughed. Not bad, I
“Yes, messengers like Moses, Je-         thought. If these Bahá’ís could smile
sus, and Mohammed. They’re like the         when someone makes fun of them,
lamps, and God’s message is the light.      maybe they won’t start a war. Then
It’s renewed every time a new Mani-         she called the meeting to order, picked
festation comes. The spiritual teach-       up a prayer book, and began to read.
ings are the same, but the social teach-       “Is there any Remover of difficul-
ings change according to the needs of       ties save God? Say: Praised be God!
society.”                                   He is God! All are His servants, and all
When he mentioned the oneness            abide by His bidding!” (Bahá’í Prayers
of religion, I remembered getting in        28).
trouble when I was eight years old for         I was horrified. I was usually the
attending a Cub Scouts meeting held         “difficulty.” Was this Bahá’í God going
in the basement of a Lutheran church.       to “remove” me? Would I be sucked
When he mentioned the oneness of            up by a giant vacuum cleaner in the
mankind, I remembered the pastor of         sky? Would I just disappear? Praying
my church speaking out from the pul-        was stupid, a waste of time. When I
pit against a “Negro” family that had       was a kid I knelt against my bed each
moved into the neighborhood. When           night reading psalms aloud. I prayed
he said that each person must inves-        for things. I prayed to be happy, and it
tigate and decide whether the Bahá’í        didn’t work. But when I listened to the
Faith is true, I believed it was true. At   Bahá’í prayers, I was surprised by the
least I wanted it to be true. But when      beauty of the words, and then some-
he said that Bahá’ís don’t do drugs or      one recited this one:
drink alcohol, I knew I couldn’t be a
Bahá’í. While I hadn’t done drugs for         O Lord! We are weak; strengthen
a while, I drank alcohol, and I didn’t        us. O God! We are ignorant; make
want to be a hypocrite. And while the         us knowing. O Lord! We are poor;
Bahá’í God made more sense than the           make us wealthy. O God! We are
god I didn’t believe in, I wasn’t ready       2 There is no clergy in the Bahá’í
to abandon my life of nonbelief.            Faith. Hands of the Cause were chosen
One of the American women, Hort-         by Bahá’u’lláh and His successors to both
ense Bredehorst, welcomed Mathew            promulgate and protect the Faith in its
and me to her home and introduced           early days until its “Supreme Body,” The
her two housemates, Mary Lou Mar-           Universal House of Justice, could be es-
tin and Doris Holley. Doris was the         tablished which occurred in 1963.
Poetry and Transformation                             25

dead; quicken us. O Lord! We are         week. Mathew and I returned to the
humiliation itself; glorify us in        Bahá’í house every day, asking more
Thy Kingdom. If Thou dost as-            questions, trying to understand the an-
sist us, O Lord, we shall become         swers. We spent all night at the hostel
as scintillating stars. If Thou dost     talking about it. When the book finally
not assist us, we shall become           arrived, I didn’t understand many of
lower than the earth. O Lord!            the English words, and I was confused
Strengthen us. O God! Confer             by the Persian ones. However, I knew
victory upon us. O God! Enable us        that the Bahá’í book was important, so
to conquer self and overcome de-         I wrapped it in plastic and kept it safe
sire. O Lord! Deliver us from the        in my backpack. After saying goodbye
bondage of the material world.           to Mathew, I left Limerick for Cork,
O Lord! Quicken us through the           where I had been invited to a Bahá’í
breath of the Holy Spirit in order       fireside.
that we may arise to serve Thee,            At the youth hostel in Cork I met a
engage in worshiping Thee and            guy who told me that this Bahá’í Faith
exert ourselves in Thy Kingdom           couldn’t be any good if they believed
with the utmost sincerity. O Lord,       in Muslims. “They’re murderers,” he
Thou art powerful. O God, Thou           said. “Stay away from them.” He told
art forgiving. O Lord, Thou art          me about the Crusades and about the
compassionate. (Promulgation 457)        evil things they did, and I was con-
fused. If the Bahá’í God said that
I was weak. I was ignorant. I was       Muslims were OK, then how could
poor. And much of the time, especial-      they be murderers?
ly when drinking, I was “humiliation          I was the only non-Bahá’í at the
itself.” How did this Bahá’í God know      fireside. They referred to me as a
that? He wrote this prayer for me,         “seeker.” I had never thought of my-
especially the sentence, “O God! En-       self that way, but when I heard the
able us to conquer self and overcome       word, it kind of made sense. A special
desire.”                                   guest, who had come down from Dún
I needed a drink.                       Laoghaire to speak, asked me if I had
Instead, I asked if they had books I    any questions. I told him what the guy
could read. They said they would get       in the hostel said and asked, “Do you
one from Dublin. I was only planning       know anything about Muslims?”
to be in Limerick a few days, but I de-       His name was Adib Taherzadeh
cided to wait for it. Despite the fact     and he knew quite a lot about Islam.
that the Bahá’ís believed in God, and      In fact, he said that his family had been
prayed, and didn’t drink, I wanted it      Muslims but had become Bahá’í in Iran
to be true. In fact, I made believe that   when Bahá’u’lláh was alive. I didn’t
I was a Bahá’í and didn’t drink that       entirely understand what that meant,
26                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

but I felt something powerful, as if I     Morgan from Caerphilly. I had been
had shaken the hand of the hand that       drinking the first time I went looking
had shaken the hand of Jesus.3             for a job, and at a construction site, I
I left that night convinced that       walked across freshly poured concrete.
whatever problems Christians might         The next day, sober, I was hired as a la-
have about Islam, they weren’t prob-       borer on a construction site at Cardiff
lems for me. The Bahá’í Faith made         University. I was to be paid forty-two
sense. Too bad Bahá’ís believed in         and a half pence—about a dollar—an
God. Too bad Bahá’ís prayed. Too bad       hour. However, because I didn’t have
Bahá’ís didn’t drink. I liked Bahá’í and   Garry Morgan’s tax records, fifty per-
probably believed it, but I knew I could   cent emergency taxes were to be with-
never live a Bahá’í life for more than a   held until I produced them.
few days.                                      My boss, Nobby, asked each payday,
“Do you have those tax records yet?”
FOUR                         “Not yet,” I answered, sometimes
forgetting my faux Welsh accent.
After spending the Christmas holidays         “You sound American,” he said one
with my recently discovered family in      time.
Wales, I wound up living in a commune         “Uh . . . I lived in Canada for a
of sorts in a working-class neighbor-      while,” I bluffed. He knew I was lying,
hood in Cardiff. The terraced house        but he didn’t press me. Sometimes I
had four bedrooms on two floors, one       forgot my assumed name and when
bathroom, and between fifteen and          Nobby called “Garry, Garry, GAR-
twenty people and two dogs crashing        RY!” I forgot to answer. When they
there at any given time. Among us          hired another laborer named Peter, I
were two runaways, a fifteen-year-old      really messed up. Nobby called “Hey,
girl who’d fled the Troubles in Belfast,   Peter,” and we both answered. Again,
and a sixteen-year-old Moroccan girl       he let it slide.
hiding from her family in Cardiff to          My job was to haul stuff from one
avoid forced marriage to an uncle. The     place to another and clean what Nobby
others were a mix of Welsh and En-         told me to clean, until one day when
glish, collecting seven pounds a week      Nobby pointed me to a jackhammer
on the dole, which they used to get        and my life became hell. I drilled holes
stoned.                                    through the concrete floor so they
I needed a job, so I bought a work-     could install the pipes and wires that
ing card that said my name was Garry       made the building hum. After working
3 Adib Taherzadeh went on to become     ten-hour shifts six days a week, all I
a member of the Universal House of Jus-    could do at night was sit in a chair and
tice on which he served from 1988 to his   shake, my beer spilling down my chin.
death in 2000.                                I was drinking more and more and
Poetry and Transformation                            27

getting more and more depressed.            questions and didn’t force anything on
I was too broke to quit my job and          me except tea and biscuits. They made
too broken to keep working. Hubert          me feel a better person than I really
Babinski had written that he would be       was, and that I could make a difference.
in Prague in the spring, and I wanted       It was March, and Viv was fasting
to meet him there, but when I contact-      during daylight hours, something I
ed the Czech embassy, they told me I        didn’t understand. On my second visit,
would have to prove I had money, ho-        I stayed too late to catch the bus back
tel reservations, and transportation in     to Cardiff, so they invited me to sleep
order to get a visa. I had none.            over. This was the first time in months
Meanwhile, conditions at the house,     I’d had a bed to myself, so I welcomed
which were never great, were dete-          it. I also wanted to see if Viv was
riorating. We slept in shifts, three or     really going to get up before sunrise
four in a bed at a time, and were all       to eat breakfast.
infected by lice. We went to the clin-          I was awakened before six as he
ic where we were given a humiliating        was making tea in the nearby kitchen.
lecture on personal hygiene complete        Soon Rita joined us and we ate an early
with leaflets and individual bottles of     breakfast together.
shampoo laced with DDT. There was               “Let’s say some prayers, now, all
little money for food and few coins to      right?”
feed the meter that sparked the “elec-          “Uh . . . OK,” I said reluctantly.
tric fire” in the living room that heated       “Blessed is the spot,” Viv began.
the rest of the house. Two women,           Then Rita read the “Remover of
girls really, had miscarriages in a two-    Difficulties,” and I had that feeling
week period. One night, an irate father     again, that I would be removed. I
forced his way in the front door and        didn’t read a prayer when asked. I
dragged his naked daughter out by the       didn’t want to be a hypocrite.
hair. Turns out, he was high up in the          “Peter,” Viv said, “we’re having a
Cardiff Constabulary, and after that, a     meeting next Sunday with a speaker
police car remained parked in front of      from London. Why don’t you join us?”
the house.                                      “I’m not sure,” I said, not wanting
I wondered if there were Bahá’ís        to commit, not wanting to get too
in South Wales. Looking through the         close to the Bahá’ís, afraid they were
phone directory, I was surprised to         rubbing off on me. However, Viv and
find a Bahá’í couple in Newport, the        Rita were so kind to me, I didn’t want
city where I was born. Viv and Rita         to disappoint them, so before I left, I
Bartlett welcomed me as if I were a         said I’d be there.
younger brother. Viv was a teacher, and         Back in Cardiff, I was miserable.
Rita, pregnant with their first child,      Exhausted from the jackhammer, I quit
was a puppeteer. They answered my           my job and spent the week getting as
28                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

drunk as possible. The police in front       This time I am alone.
of the house taunted us, saying they         This time I am alone.
were going to close the place down and       This time it is a river.
put us all in jail. Because my visa had      This time an inlet.
expired months earlier, I knew I would       Waters rush through me.
be deported. Although I had a return         A disorganized river.
ticket to New York, I didn’t want to         This proof.
go home. In addition to the fiancé I
didn’t want to marry, I was estranged        This time I wake in the Chevy.
from my father and stepmother, and I         My salmon face rises in the
had left behind a heap of debt I didn’t        mirror.
This time an ocean.
know how to pay off. I couldn’t stay
The days crash over me.
in Cardiff, and I couldn’t go back to
My name is Not Yet.
New York, so I drank and got drunk.
My name is Almost.
Drank and got drunk. I finally decided
My name is About to.
to jump off a building. Then I thought
(Stubborn Child 19)
I should get my ear pierced instead.
Then I thought maybe I should become          I did not want to move. I did not
a Bahá’í. Suicide, ear pierced, become a   want to get up. I did not want to go
Bahá’í: each made as much sense as the     to the Bahá’í meeting, but I had given
next. I was twenty-one years old, and      Viv and Rita my word. I managed to
my life was over. I drank harder.          stand, then stumbled into the house
When I woke up on Sunday                and collapsed on the couch, which,
morning I thought I was drowning.          surprisingly, had no one else crashing
Actually, it was raining, and I was        on it. When I felt I could walk without
lying in the gutter outside the house.     falling, I climbed the steps, put on dry
I was, once again, “humiliation itself.”   clothes, went back out in the rain and
Decades later I would write this poem:     walked to the stop to catch the bus to
Newport and was soaked again.
BAPTISM                        The meeting was on the second floor
of a building in the middle of the city,
This time I wake under a bridge.         not far from the Windsor Castle Hotel
My ochre face rises in the rear          where my parents had met and where
view mirror like a jaundiced sun.        I had lived as a baby, not far from St.
This time my trousers are damp.          Mary’s Catholic Church where they
This time my trousers are dry.           were married and I was baptized. I
This time I wake in a gutter.            didn’t know how long the meeting
Rain flows around me.                    would go on, but I figured I could
take off around eleven, when the pubs
Poetry and Transformation                              29

opened. The speaker from London was                The Bahá’ís are trying to rescue peo-
Phillip Hinton. He was going on, but               ple, and there you are safe and sound
I couldn’t follow what he was saying.              watching us from up the mountain. If
He had a funny accent, not quite Brit-             you believe in Bahá’u’lláh, then you
ish, but close enough. I learned later             need to help us change the world. You
that he was from South Africa. When                need to become a Bahá’í.”
he finished, I had fulfilled my obliga-                My stomach was roiling, my head
tion to Viv and Rita and was about                 pounding, and I was chilled from
to leave when they asked me to stay                sleeping in the rain. I needed a drink,
for a cup of tea. I had the shakes and             and the pubs were now open. But this
needed to get a real drink, but before I           man had just told me that if I be-
could say no thanks, Hinton came over              lieved in Bahá’u’lláh, I should become
and asked, “What do you think of the               a Bahá’í. Whenever I thought of the
Bahá’í Faith?”                                     future, all I thought about was what I
“It makes sense,” I said.                       would stock in my liquor cabinet and
“Do you believe Bahá’u’lláh is God’s            how I would pay for it. But I had cut
latest Manifestation?”                             back in the Lake District, and I didn’t
“No . . . I’m not sure . . . I think so . . .   drink for a week in Limerick. Maybe
maybe . . . I don’t know . . . probably . . .”     I could do it. My shaking got worse
Rita handed me a cup of tea.                    and my tea spilled. This was a differ-
“If you believe that Bahá’u’lláh                ent kind of shaking that seemed to
is a Manifestation of God, you are a               come from within me. My whole body
Bahá’í. You have to join us. We need               was trembling. I knew I couldn’t live a
you.”                                              Bahá’í life, but I would have to try.
“I can’t do that,” I said, panicking.               “OK,” I said.
“I can’t live the kind of life Bahá’ís are             “OK?” Phillip asked, making sure.
supposed to live, and I don’t want to be               “What do I do?”
a hypocrite.”                                          Viv handed me a card and a pen.
“You’re more of a hypocrite,” he                “Just sign this, Peter. That’s all there
said, “if you believe in Bahá’u’lláh and           is to it.”
don’t join us, than if you try to live a               It read, “In signing this card, I
Bahá’í life and are not able to live up            declare my belief in Bahá’u’lláh, the
to it.”                                            Promised One of God. I also recog-
“What?” I said, not believing he just           nize the Báb, His Forerunner, and
called me a hypocrite. I knew I was a              ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of His Cove-
screw-up, but I considered myself a                nant. I request enrollment in the Bahá’í
sincere screw-up.                                  Community with the understanding
“Listen,” he said. “Make believe                that Bahá’u’lláh has established sacred
that a river is overflowing its banks              principles, laws and institutions which
and is about to wipe out the village.              I must obey.”
30                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

“OK,” I said again, and signed.        out. How do I live a Bahá’í life? How
However, I was shaking so badly my         do I not drink? How do I not screw
signature was illegible. Viv looked it     up? What do I do now? I had no idea.
over, then asked me to sign a second       A group of young Bahá’ís were going
card. I tried not to shake so much, but    out to lunch and invited me to go with
I couldn’t help it, and my signature       them. I asked question after question
was just as bad. He handed me a third      about my new faith, partly because
card.                                      I knew so little, but mostly because
“I understand if you don’t want        I knew that as long as I stayed with
me,” I said. “But I’m not going to do      them I wouldn’t drink. I was hoping
it again.”                                 they would hang out with me until
“Fair enough,” he said. “We’ll make    the pubs closed and, as if they’d read
do.”                                       my mind, they did. On the bus back to
Like that day four months earlier      Cardiff I felt better. I didn’t drink that
sitting by the River Shannon, I felt as    day. I didn’t know what I would do
if a great weight had been lifted from     the next day, but I would worry about
me. Then I was surrounded by people        that in the morning. I had never heard
who were congratulating me. I felt         of Alcoholics Anonymous, but I was
like a celebrity. People started buying    doing “one day at a time” on my own.
books from a table where they were         The next morning I woke up laugh-
set out and gave them to me. One was       ing. I’d dreamed that an old man with
a prayer book, which I didn’t think I      a white beard and white robes told me
needed.                                    I was going to be all right. Looking
“Here are the obligatory prayers,” a   through my new Bahá’í books, I saw a
woman named Margaret said.                 picture of the old man. His name was
“What does obligatory mean?” I         ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of Bahá’u’lláh.
asked.                                     How did He get in my dream?
“These are the prayers you have           Bahá’u’lláh said that I had to obey
to say each day. There’s a long one,       the law of the land. This meant that
a short one, and a medium sized one,       I had to leave the United Kingdom
sort of like Goldilocks.”                  because my visa had expired. I had no-
“You mean I have to pray? Every        where else to go, so I was forced to go
day?” I knew Bahá’ís said prayers, but     home and make up with my family. A
I didn’t know they had to.                 few years later, reading Frost, I came
“Yes, that’s what Bahá’u’lláh says.    across, “Home is the place where, when
You’ll get the hang of it.”                you have to go there, / They have to
I wasn’t so sure, but if Bahá’u’lláh   take you in” (“The Death of the Hired
said I should pray, I’d give it a shot,    Man,” 122–23). I wrote a letter to my
even if I didn’t agree with it.            father, telling him that I had become a
Meanwhile, I had a lot to figure       Bahá’í, that I was coming home, that
Poetry and Transformation                            31

I would try to do better, that I hoped                        FIVE
we could get along. Then I wrote to
Mathew Kennedy telling him that I            Making up is hard to do. My father
had become a Bahá’í and that I was           was happy to see me, but I’m not sure
coming over to Ireland, and that if he       about my stepmother. I had to earn
didn’t become a Bahá’í, I would beat         her trust, so I got a haircut, shaved my
him up.                                      beard, and looked for a job. I wanted
“No more fighting over religion,          to stay as far away from drinking as
Peter,” Mathew wrote back. “I became         possible, so I couldn’t tend bar. I had
a Bahá’í too. But come now and you’ll        no other skills, so I drove a cab and
be here when we elect our first Nation-      memorized Bahá’í prayers while stuck
al Spiritual Assembly.”4                     in Midtown traffic. I started with the
A Bahá’í couple from Bristol, just        “Remover of Difficulties” because it
over the English border, invited me to       was short, and I wanted to overcome
their wedding the following weekend.         my fear that I would be “removed.” I
I left Thursday and returned to the          worked my way up to the “Tablet of
house in Cardiff on Monday. Yellow           Ahmad,” a tablet to one who’d spent
crime tape covered the door. A neigh-        his life searching for his “Beloved.” I
bor appeared. “What happened?” I             realized that I too had been searching,
asked                                        but unlike Ahmad, who searched for
“The police arrested all you drug         spiritual meaning, I was searching in
addicts on Friday. They’ll be coming         the world of things. I realized that
back for you as soon as I phone them,”       the search for truth didn’t end when
she threatened.                              I became a Bahá’í. I had a lot to learn,
If I hadn’t have become a Bahá’í,         but I wasn’t the best reader and didn’t
I would not have gone to Bristol and         understand most of what I read. I
would have been arrested too. I left in      went to the Bahá’í Center whenever
a hurry and didn’t return to Cardiff         there was something going on and
for three decades.                           met other Bahá’ís and came up with a
plan. I drove my new Bahá’í friends to
meetings around the city, asked them
questions and paid attention to their
4 After serving as a member of the        answers.
Auxiliary Board, which helps to protect         Six months later, my father got me a
and propagate the Bahá’í Faith at the        job apprenticing as a heavy-equipment
grassroots level, Matthew Kennedy is,        operator. Mostly, I ran brick hoists on
at the time of this writing, a member of     small buildings in the outer boroughs,
the National Spiritual Assembly which        but occasionally I operated a cherry
oversees the administrative affairs of the   picker in Manhattan. I learned that
Bahá’ís of Ireland.                          Bahá’ís believed service to others was
32                The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

important, and work done in the spir-      During my lunch break operating a
it of service was like prayer. I didn’t    crane near 34th Street, I browsed the
think hoisting bricks was very prayer-     bookstore in Penn Station and picked
ful or that I was serving anybody. I       up Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching
was just paying my bills. I realized       Children to Write Poetry by Kenneth
that I would have to go to college to do   Koch. This is what I want to do, teach
something more meaningful, but that        kids to read and write poetry. I was
hadn’t worked the first three times,       going to be an English major. I took
and I wasn’t sure it would go any bet-     a placement test, which I failed so
ter now. But I thought, if I’m smart       badly I was assigned to a remedial
enough to recognize God’s messenger,       class where I was one of three native
maybe I’m smart enough to make it for      English speakers. I complained to the
more than a semester.                      head of the English department that
I showed up at Queens College to        this was a mistake. After all, I was a
register as a non-matriculated student,    poet.
taking courses at night. I didn’t need a      “No,” he said, looking at my writing
transcript or test results. I could en-    sample. “You belong there.”
roll in courses that had empty seats.         He handed me my paper, which
“What do you want to study?” a          had no capitalization or punctuation.
counselor asked.                           When I tried to explain why I didn’t
One of the Bahá’ís told me that         use it, he just shook his head. I spent a
agriculture is important, so I said        year in remedial English and learned
“agriculture.”                             to read and write.
“Agriculture?” the counselor asked.        I read Bahá’í books that expanded
“We’re in New York City. Do you see        my thinking far more that drugs ever
any farms around here?”                    did. I continued writing poems, which
“Farms?” I didn’t know agriculture      seemed more substantial than the ones
was about farms. “Uh . . .” I answered.    I’d written before. I wanted to ex-
“What do you have that’s close?”           press—no, I wanted to reveal and un-
He looked at the counselor next to      derstand the changes in my life. I was
him. She shrugged her shoulders and        clinging to sobriety, though I didn’t
said, “Geology?”                           know that word yet. I was clinging to
I wasn’t sure what geology was ei-      this new religion, trying not to screw
ther, but I was embarrassed for being so   up. I wasn’t sure that I was making
stupid and wanted to get out of there,     progress. Then I remembered climb-
so I said “geology,” and they helped       ing the Old Man of Coniston in the
me fill out the paperwork. I liked ge-     Lake District. When I looked at the
ology, but I knew I couldn’t major in      top of the mountain, I saw how far
it because I wasn’t smart enough to        I had to go and didn’t think I would
take hard science and advanced math.       make it, but when I looked down, I
Poetry and Transformation                            33

saw how high I had climbed and didn’t       life, the eternal questioning. The
want to fall. I wrote a poem, trying to     point is that the question is all. It
understand this transformation.             encompasses awe, wonder, hope,
faith and doubt, confusion, de-
FRUITION                      spair . . . (Commonweal 331)

A tree entered my mind                   Turns out they didn’t hit me up
preparing for sleep                   for seven dollars. The writer, Hannerl
growing deep                          Ebenhoech-Liebmann, went on to
in the night                          compare my poem to Goethe and El-
and grew                              iot. I was flabbergasted. Could one of
neither blossoms nor fruit            my friends have written the letter as a
joke? But I doubted any of my friends
a yawn branches in waking             had ever heard of Goethe and Eliot.
roaring with leaves                   The letter ends with these remarks:
while there’s all this
waiting                                    . . . Peter Murphy’s “Fruition” is
what time do the flowers start          poetry proper. Why? It is one of
(Commonweal 209)            those poems of which Robert Nye
says that they so uncomfortably
I sent it to Commonweal, which          and unforgettably give him the
not only published it but mailed me a       sense “that they read me, rather
check for seven dollars. A few weeks        than I them, and that they crit-
later Commonweal sent me a tear sheet       icize me, rather than I make the
announcing the publication of their         judgment.” (Commonweal 351)
fiftieth-year anthology, which cost, of
course, seven dollars.                       “Poetry proper,” really? I must be a
Ha. They wanted their money back.     real poet.
I wrote out the check, and as I was
about to seal the envelope, I noticed                       SIX
my name on the back of the tear sheet:
It is March 26, 2012. I am standing in
To the Editors: Peter Murphy’s       front of the terraced house in Cardiff,
“Fruition” is a poem I learned by       Wales, where forty years earlier I woke
heart. Its impact dawned on me,         up in the gutter. The urge to drink has
slowly and gradually, just as the       certainly decreased but hasn’t gone
“tree . . . growing deep in the         away. In 1987, after being sober for
night.” Its meaning burst open          fifteen years, I started having drinking
“in waking roaring with leaves”         dreams that terrified me so much they
as it approaches the mystery of         drove me to AA. I began to talk about
34                 The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24.3/4 2014

drinking, which—too embarrassed,
especially around Bahá’ís—I’d never
done. I started to write about it as well.

THE DESIRE

Last night I dreamt I was drinking again
and got drunk, and walked out on the quiet life
I’ve been living these last few years.
I watched as I let my family go—
The wife who understood and would not forgive,
The child who clung to my loose clothing, crying
Don’t go, Daddy don’t go, take Mommy and me
with you.
I remember saying that too, grabbing the coat
of my own father as he swung his arms around
to touch me. And I trailed him
as he followed his father until I let go.

I fell back into sleep, into dreams—
There were rivers I had to cross and recross,
and fires starting in every forest I came to,
and cars screeching around corners,
about to go off a cliff,
about to crash in a desert
where I am thirsty all the time.
(Stubborn Child 55)

But this is not an occasion for poet-       turned back from Thee, Thou
ry; it is an occasion for prayer. Look-        didst graciously aid me to turn
ing down at the gutter, I recite “Bless-       towards Thee. I was as one dead,
ed is the Spot.” I recite the “Remover         Thou didst quicken me with the
of Difficulties.” I recite a prayer for        water of life . . . (Bahá’í Prayers
gratitude:                                     19)

. . . What tongue can voice my                While I will never be a “scintillating
thanks to Thee? I was heedless,            star,” I am no longer “humiliation
Thou didst awaken me. I had                itself,” and I am grateful.
Poetry and Transformation                            35

WORKS CITED

‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Promulgation of Universal Peace. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing
Trust, 1982. Print.
The Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Bahá’í Prayers: A Selection of Prayers
Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í
Publishing Trust, 1991. Print.
Cummings, E. E. Is 5. New York: Liveright, 1996. Print.
Ebenhoech-Liebmann, Hannerl. “Poetry Proper.” Commonweal 99.12 (1973): 331.
Print.
Frost, Robert. “The Death of the Hired Man.” Selected Poems of Robert Frost. New
York. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962. Print.
Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “God’s Grandeur.” Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley
Hopkins. Baltimore. Penguin. 1967. Print.
Keats, John. “[On Negative Capability: Letter to George and Tom Keats, Decem-
ber 1818.]” Letters of John Keats. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Print.
Lennon, John. “Imagine.” Imagine. EMI Records Ltd., 1971. CD.
MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 July 2014.
Murphy, Peter E. Stubborn Child. New York: Jane Street Press, 2005. Print.
———. “Ars Poetica.” Many Mountains Moving: A Literary Journal of Diverse
Contemporary Voices (Fall 1998): 93. Print.
———. “Fruition.” Commonweal 99.8 (1973): 209. Print.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” American Academy of Poets, n.d.
Web. 13 July 2014.
Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,
n.d. Web. 13 July 2014.
Stevens, Wallace. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bird.” Poems, Wallace
Stevens. New York: Vintage, 1954. Print.
Williams, William Carlos. “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower.” Selected Poems. New
York: New Directions, 1969. Print.
———. “Paterson, Book 1.” Paterson. New York: New Directions, 1995. Print.
———. “The Manoeuvre.” Selected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1985.
Print.
Wordsworth, William. A Choice of Wordsworth’s Verse. Ed. R.S. Thomas. London:
Faber and Faber, 1971. Print.
———. Lyrical Ballads. Ed. Derek Roper. London and Glasgow: Collins, 1968.
Print.
Flight of the Paper Cranes
TAMI HAALAND
It started as a sad day. Sometimes you get
more than you want. I settled in. We all
settled and expected nothing but haze.

Then the colored box arrived. A little
square of patterned sheets and cardboard.
I lifted the lid and admired the perfect corners.

Inside, stacks of color, rows of blue umbrellas,
tiny flowers, repetitive wide lines.
Golden shine or primary pigment.

My friend Jane took the first sheet. We watched her
fold and fold again until she had a red paper crane.
She put it in the center of the floor, then started another.

I lifted a sheet from the stack, blue like
Mediterranean doorways or deep sky. Every fold
she made, I copied. For her, this crane

sang purple. We set them on the floor.
The others joined in and watched our folds.
The cranes multiplied and colors quadrupled.

Some kind of resonance emerged. Not jittery
but joyful. That’s all it was. The word vibrant
described what happened in our cells

and in the ascending pile of cranes. We didn’t stop.
It became our work. We gave cranes to our friends,
to people who only saw gray, to our families.

We planned ways we could get them further out.
We mailed a box of bright cranes to the mayor,
and news people came with their cameras.

They asked why we did this. We said
we’re solving it. Watch, we said, you’ll see.
-- Poetry and Transformation (Used by permission of the curator)