麻豆社

Good morning.

This year鈥檚 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to US poet Louise Gl眉ck. I鈥檇 never heard of her before but I鈥檝e spent the last few days dipping into her poetry and beginning to get a feel for her style 鈥� evocative and unsettling, at times terrifying, with some elusive presence whispering just beyond the reach of language. In some poems there鈥檚 an unnamed 鈥測ou鈥� who might be a father or mother, a lover, a child, or a god. Announcing the award, the Swedish Academy referred to 鈥渢he austere beauty鈥� of Gl眉ck鈥檚 poetic voice.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein cautioned that 鈥渨hereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.鈥� I believe that poetry, like prayer, must defy this injunction, breaching the barriers of meaning and pushing language until it buckles under the weight of the unspeakable. In that process, our horizons are enlarged, our small worlds are broken open, and we begin to discover liberation in the quest for truth. Every regime that seeks control censors the Arts, banishing the 鈥渁ustere beauty鈥� which belongs to this human quest. In our corporate cultures, the means of censorship is subtle and the Market is often the tyrant. Arts and Humanities programmes are under threat in some universities because they鈥檙e not profitable, even though they are the bedrock of culture, creativity and the intellectual life. Thus we are gradually anaesthetised to settle for the banality of words without substance and jargon without meaning in our increasingly impoverished public discourse.

The novelist Colm Toibin says of Gl眉ck鈥檚 poetry that 鈥淪he has a knowledge, both baleful and enabling, of how little can be said that is true, and how much dark energy is then released in the effort to speak.鈥� George Eliot refers to 鈥渢hat roar which lies on the other side of silence.鈥� For me, great poets like Gl眉ck offer a fleeting encounter with that roaring silence, that 鈥渄ark energy鈥� which is released with our efforts to speak.

The majestic opening to John鈥檚 Gospel says that 鈥渋n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.鈥� This primal Word is a mystery beyond the reach of human words, and yet for Christians it is the One who gives meaning to the world and a redemptive purpose to history. For me, this Word is the elusive 鈥測ou鈥�, whispering without words and releasing a dark energy through poetry and prayer.

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