First Things RSS Feed - Sean Curnyn

Leonard Cohen, Religious Alchemist

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 06:00:00 -0500

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian, but he was the poet laureate of another nation: a nation of souls by turns sensitive, lost, alienated, ecstatic, bitter—souls seeking truth through the fog of modernity. Cohen was one of those rock-era poets (and arguably the only genuine poet among them) who sounded like he knew something of the utmost importance, even as he spent most of his time sidestepping every certainty and making the most of every mystery.

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Grace in the Word: Samuel Menashe, 1925-2011

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:05:00 -0400

The poet Samuel Menashe (whose work been printed many times in the pages of First Things ) died in his sleep on August 22nd, at the age of 85. As the obituaries and tributes have noted, he had been the recipient of the first “Neglected Masters Award” from the Poetry Foundation in 2004, with his New and Selected Poems then being published by the Library of America. He had received a good deal of acclaim among poets and poetry aficionados overseas before that time, but 2004 for him was making it in his home: the United States. New York City was also his home. Until last year he lived in the same old apartment in a downtown walk-up where he had lived since the 1950s, a space which itself inhabits quite a bit of his poetry. Following a health crisis about 12 months ago he moved to an assisted-living residence uptown (a space he described without bitterness as being, relative to his old digs, “a palace!”).

His poems have been praised for their powerful resonance and their remarkable concision and precision. Christopher Ricks, reading Menashe’s work with his characteristic closeness, gave it this accolade: “Not just le mot juste but la lettre juste .” And Dana Gioia said of Menashe that he “is essentially a religious poet, though one without an orthodox creed. Nearly every poem he has ever published radiates a heightened religious awareness.”

Samuel liked people who liked his poetry, it’s safe to say. Materially speaking, he could hardly have lived more modestly, but he did not wrap himself in false modesty with regard to his work; neither however did he display excessive pride. What he conveyed in person was a joy and wonder in his own poems, as if he himself were encountering them each time for the first time, even though he could recite them from memory.

I can recite a few of them from memory myself, and it’s something I actually do quite often, and figure on continuing to do. For readers of Menashe who are also religious believers, I think quite a number of his poems possess a resonance well beyond the literary or strictly poetic. They often resonate with the heart, passion and mystery of profound prayer. And given both the brevity and reflective depth of his poems, I’ve found a number of them especially fitting as prayers before meals”table graces”and it is in this slightly mundane way that I expect to keep Menashe’s poems close to my lips. I think that this is perhaps not inappropriate for a poet who was so gifted at seeing and lifting up the sacred in the mundane. As an example of a Menashian table grace, take his poem “Manna” (which appeared in First Things March 2011):

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Johnny Cash: One More Time

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:22:00 -0400

As goes Scripture, so goes country music: The great lines are reused forever. Just listen to the final song that Johnny Cash composed, titled “I Corinthians 15:55,” and the refrain, which goes like this:

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Tangled Up In Tinsel: A Preview of Bob Dylan’s “Christmas In The Heart”

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:15:37 -0400

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Let There Be Music

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:18:00 -0400

Recently Dan Cairns in the U.K. Times found listening to one of the songs from Paddy McAloon’s new album (recorded seventeen years ago but only released last week) to be a heartbreaking experience.

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Well, speaking of that guy…

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:19:04 -0400

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Sarah Palin, David Letterman, and Class

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:16:57 -0400

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Doomed Again

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:51:28 -0400

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Abuse in Irish Schools: Reaction from the Pope (and Yours Truly)

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:12:14 -0400

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Private William Long laid to rest

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:45:55 -0400

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