The papers discuss modern poetry and its relationship with religion. The first paper looks at the role of Islam in the contemporary poetry of Fatimah Asghar and Kaveh Akbar arguing that religion shapes bodies, and these bodies sit uncomfortably with American secularism. The second paper draws attention to the work of the renowned poet monk Taixu 太虚 by analyzing his use of the classical Chinese image of the "lamp and candle," incorporating elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism into his verse. The third paper uses Anna Margolin’s poem “Mary’s Prayer [Maris tfile]” and asks about the theological valence of the Jewish literary secular through a reading of absence, negativity, and relationality. The fourth paper observes the religious and ethical significance of San Antonio-based Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetics of the small and ordinary in conversation with Latino Catholic theologian Alejandro García-Rivera’s theological aesthetics of “lifting up the lowly.”
According to Tracy Fessenden, religion in American literature has been hidden behind the secular. Good religion is transparent and good literature is non-religious. The aspiration of non-Protestant religions seeking acceptance in America was to make themselves transparent and leave their religious views out of their writing. For Muslim American poets, it would be best not to talk about one's Muslimness and to keep one's beliefs to themselves for the sake of literary acceptance. This paper looks at the role of Islam in the poetry of Fatimah Asghar and Kaveh Akbar, who challenge this view of the relationship between religion and literature, even as they situate themselves much differently in relation to Islam. What these poets have in common is that their work reveals the inextricability of religion from bodies. Religion shapes bodies and is marked on bodies in ways that cannot be neatly incorporated into American secularism as currently constructed.
The poetry of the renowned poet monk Taixu 太虚 (1890-1947) offers a unique perspective on the classical Chinese image of the "lamp and candle", exploring its Buddhist meanings and literary characteristics. Through his continuous writing, Taixu draws upon a rich cultural heritage, incorporating elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism into his verse. His poetry is characterized by evocative imagery and philosophical depth, reflecting Taixu's expression of personal emotions. This article offers a hitherto unexplored assessment of Taixu's literary achievements as a poet, focusing on his use of the classical Chinese image "lamp and candle". Through a detailed analysis of this image in his poetry, this study sheds new light on the role of classical Chinese imagery in the development of modern Buddhist poetry. The article contributes to the fields of Chinese literature, Buddhist studies, and comparative religion, providing insight into the intersection of artistic expression and spiritual practice.
A consensus in the field of Jewish Studies holds that modern Jewish literature is a secular phenomenon. While religion per se is undoubtedly a muted theme in the literary production of Jews, this does not exhaust how Jewish writers have engaged with theological idioms. This paper asks about the theological valence of the Jewish literary secular through a reading of absence, negativity, and relationality in the writings of philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) and poet Anna Margolin (1887-1952). Focusing on the poem “Mary’s Prayer [Maris tfile]” alongside her broader use of the rhetorical figure of apostrophe, I show how Margolin fashions a poetic subjectivity that leverages theological tropes to blur boundaries between Jew and Christian, absence and presence, silence and speech. In so doing, I ask how poetics, for Margolin, becomes a practice of relational subjectivity and its ruptures, one that critically departs from predominant modes of modern Jewish identity.
In this paper, I explore the religious and ethical significance of contemporary San Antonio-based Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetics of the small and ordinary in conversation with Latino Catholic theologian Alejandro García-Rivera’s theological aesthetics of “lifting up the lowly.” First, I offer a description of Nye’s poetics of smallness in the context of American-led wars in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Second, I utilize García-Rivera’s concept of poetic “foregrounding,” or “lifting up the lowly,” wherein the poetic violates the aesthetic norm by “lifting up” something that had been in the background of attention. I argue that in Nye’s poetry, this act of “lifting up the lowly” reveals the sacredness of those overlooked by logics of military and religious violence. Finally, I illustrate this poetic “foregrounding” in the poem “Holy Land,” which contrasts the ideas of holiness amongst religious patriarchs with that of Nye’s Palestinian grandmother, Sitti Khadra.