Poetically pro-life #2
How would you define poetry? Rhyming prose, perhaps? No, that doesn’t really capture its essence. poetry.com defines it:
Poetry is a form of artistic expression that uses language to evoke emotion, paint vivid imagery, and convey complex ideas. It is a means of communicating human experiences and emotions in a way that is both powerful and evocative.
The America poet, Robert Penn Warren called poetry an “adventure in selfhood.” He says poetry “wakes us up to our own life.”
What makes poetry so compelling is its ability to say more with less words. It not only wakes us up to our own life, as Mr. Warren tells us, it helps us value the lives of others in profound ways.
Pulse Life Advocates is proud to share some of the poems written by Josie Talley, a 19 year-old college student at Creighton University and Dowling High School graduate, written with the support of Students for Life of America.
Her entire collection is aptly titled, “Poetically Pro-Life.”
Gift of Life
This one grabbed us immediately:
GIFT OF LIFE
I think people forget the difference between being alive and living
Being alive isn’t all too complicated
Truly living though, that’s a challenge
To see every day as the gift it is
I’d argue that most aren’t living but are only alive
Groundhog Day on an endless loop
Using an upside down map to get nowhere much
When you are alive, it’s not too surprising that we take life for granted
It’s easier to deny others when we don’t value it
We steal life, forgetting we also rob the joy of living
Be sure to read it aloud to yourself, preferably several times. Let the words sink in. How does this affect you?
“Being alive isn’t all too complicated” really catches the reader. She develops the theme to its dramatic conclusion by implying the solution to abortion without stating it with the directness of prose.
This poem is a wake up call to be fully alive by valuing each day God gives us, and each person we encounter.
Author, Andrew Klavan, discovered God and Jesus at the age of 49 thanks to the ‘truth and beauty’ he found in great literature. Two decades later, he wrote a book with that title, “THE TRUTH AND BEAUTY, How the lives and works of England’s greatest poets point the way to a deeper understanding of the words of Jesus.”
Says Klavan:
“Most of the great Christian thinkers from the very beginning have always said, ‘There’s a book of Scripture, and there’s a book of nature, and in both of them, we can read the glory of God. These things actually are telling the same story. And the Romantics prove that to be true.”
What Josie Talley communicates with us in her poetry is that life matters, a wry response to the question, “What is the meaning of life?”
Humanity
Consider this poem by Ms. Talley:
HUMANITY
What gives a life value?
Does wantedness or unwantedness determine that?
A baby if wanted, a parasite if not
What happened to the sanctity of life?
An appreciation for the miracle of creation…lost
Tossed aside in the name of choice
At what point have we gone too far?
The second we begin to debate a person’s humanity
See how she poses a series of questions to set up a thunderous response in the last line? Again, read it aloud several times. Poetry should be recited.
Klavan, who hosts a weekly podcast, The Andrew Klavan Show, is a novelist who wrote the screenplay for the pro-life movie, “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.”
He was raised as a cultural Jew, but lived his life as an atheist until literature led him to Christianity by opening up the language of God:
“What the English Romantics discovered in an age where science and radicalism were making faith shaky, Klavan emphasized, is that “matter, this stuff we’re made out of, is the language in which God speaks to us.”
Pulse Life Advocates agrees with St. John Paul the Great’s assertion that politics is downstream from culture. That’s why we embrace good art and occasionally sponsor cultural events. That’s why we’re showcasing Josie Talley’s beautiful poetry.
We encourage you to visit her website and experience “a compilation of pro-life poetry for the everyday advocate.”