Where have the Bards gone?

the deep
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

...if you hate poetry or don't have the time or are just indifferent, consider that this might be symptomatic of some deep failure in you instead of in the poetry. And then, don't just admit to the failure and go on hanging your head. Hunt for beauty. Track it down. A passion for beauty certainly is characteristic of those great men in the past whose lives were characterized as after God's own heart. Remember David's psalms and Beowulf's celebrations, full of life and faithfulness.-from Douglas Jones article "Men hate poetry" at www.credenda.com

When did poetry become the haven of shemales? In days of old the Bard was an intricate part of community life. Not the odd thespian of medieval life but the teller of tales, the singer of songs, the weaver of truth. The heart of the party, the culmination of victory, the balm in sorrow. Poetry has been emasculated and shunned to the basement unless it is hidden in music like some unwanted vitamin being chased with kool-aid.

Lyrics are often tossed aside for a rush and a beat. " Who cares what the singer is saying...I just like the beat" is what I always heard as a youth pastor trying to teach teens to listen again. The music a person listens too is a reflection of who they are. It says so much about their soul.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. --George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

There is a longing in me to recapture the masculine voice. To see the Bard return to his glory again. To move away from the breathy musings that accompany so much of christian music and rediscover the bones of our fathers again. Strip away the light and fluffy cotton candy songs that dominate the airwaves of most christians radio; and carve out songs that resonate in the marrow of men.

I find echoes of this in some music I listen too, usually hard stuff that borderlines on the edge of healthy. It frightens me when unsaved men can seem to speak to my heart more than saved..

Somethings wrong, shut the light,
Heavy thoughts tonight,
And they arent of snow white;
Dreams of war, dreams of liars
Dreams of dragons fire,
And of things that will bite;
Sleep with one eye open,
Gripping your pillow tight
-Enter Sandman by Metallica

When you turn on the tv and see mass murder, evil and tragedy. Today's religious cinnamon and spice...just doesn't cut it. Are all the poets wearing corsets?

There is a...yearning...yes, I yearn...have you ever yearned? ;)

"Pure 'Northernness' engulfed me; a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity. . . ." This northernness is not necessarily Christian, but when turned to Christ it is redeemed like all sinful things and stands upright. But we have little interest in such redemptions or their results because the church in our era is slack and effeminate. We do not look at an unbounded northern sky and see the eternity of God; rather, we look mystically inward to the swamps and standing puddles of our own hearts and see just what one might expect in such places - but not very much and not very far. -C.S. Lewis

J.R.R Tolkien was a bard and you find songs and poetry all throughout the Lord of the Rings. Deep words, rich lyrics that taste of earth, stone and the hides of men.

Lewis said of Tolkien's writing, "Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart."

Here is a piece that has deep dirt all over it. It's rich, like an old leather couch in a dusty library.

Selection from LOTR: Song of Durin's Awakening:

There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was bladed and bound was hilt;
The delver mined the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale
And metel wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in horde.

Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.

The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.