mythopoeia

While I'm blogging...

Yesterday I went to a public 'open genre' reading here in rockport. I finally decided to read a poem Tolkien wrote Lewis while they had been discussing the use and validity of myth and fiction. I had always seen this quote of it, and thought it was the whole poem:

The heart of man is not compound of lies,

but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,

and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,

man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,

his world-dominion by creative act:

not his to worship the great Artefact,

man, sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seeds of dragons, 'twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we're made.

While that's probably still my favorite part of it, the whole, much longer poem (to my delight), is available here: http://www.geocities.com/domachowski/mythopoeia.html

I've heard that this Poem was intrumental in Lewis' conversion to Christianity from Atheism.

Anyway, I ended up reading the entire poem. About a quarter of the way though, I discovered I was quite nervous to be in front of all those people, reading. But I forgot that before the end.

Most people there were reading there own poems or short stories. One guy apparently has a regular program on NPR! Quite a few of them were excellent readers. The last poet was so moving with his voice, that I felt the hair stand up on my back.