Alexandra Glynn, Psalm Sonnets. Resource Publications,
2015. ISBN-13: 978-1498223669. 54 pages. $8.00
From her title, Alexandra Glynn makes it clear what readers should
expect from her collection of poems. In
the same way that the biblical psalms explore questions of sin and belief and
doubt and worship, Glynn’s poems do the same, though exclusively in sonnet
form. This is a book for believers,
those who know many of the biblical stories already, not for those who are
outside of the faith who would find references to the “bracelets, signet, and
the staff” as “signs” confusing, at best.
These poems, then, are devotional, and Glynn makes no apology for that.
That is not to say, though, that Glynn does not present the more
complicated questions of life in her writing.
In fact, the opening poem, “With palms in hand,” (and I have no idea if
she purposely began with a poem that has an anagram of psalm in its title or
not, but I like to think so) begins with the speaker talking about following
Jesus into Jerusalem, but ends by asking if she will “go out in the bitterness
of the night/With greed, envy, and hatred in my heart/To meet with those who do
what is not right?” She knows that we
humans, even believers, are flawed, fallible creatures, as capable of acting
like the disciples who abandoned Jesus as those who sing his praises.
There are also poems that move past such questions to try to provide
home and comfort, as she moves quickly from her first two poems that are
concerned with humanity’s sinfulness to a poem like “A tale is told like a
light,” which ends
Our consolations, as
light after light,
Are retold to us year
by year and word
By word; so we to the
story belong
Just as a melody does
to a song.
Glynn combines the power of story, in general, to the story the angels
tell—here summed up simply with “Do not fear”—to prove, as she says,
consolation. She wants readers to see
the hope that comes through the collection, that ultimately drives the doubts
and questions away.
One interesting theme that develops throughout is that of loneliness
and community. Almost in the middle of
the collection, two poems—“You left our Christianity” and “We used to sit
together clad in white”—tell of someone who has left the faith from the point
of view of the person still there. While
it is clear the speaker is concerned about the apostate’s soul (the closing of
both poems make that quite clear), the speaker also seems to miss the other’s physical
presence.
This loneliness becomes quite explicit in “I am lonely like Joseph,”
where the speaker is unable to see the beauty of the world because of that
loneliness. The speaker also clearly
seeks spiritual comfort in a poem like “Befriend me in my shame,” which ends
with the speaker asking God (I’m assuming) to “Help me, acknowledge that you
know my name;/Walk side by side with me in my great shame.” The final poem, though, seems to seek
inclusion in a community, not just acceptance by Jesus, as it opens “Don’t kick
me out. Don’t gather around me/And list
my sins and faults and what I said/And did not say, last year, last
month.” This poem examines the idea of a
community that seems more interested in taking notes on the speaker’s life than
simply loving that person.
I would have liked to see more poems like the one that concludes the
collection, as it is here that Glynn seems to most honestly wrestle with
challenging ideas. In other poems, such
as “The snow is pure and white but I am not,” the conclusions are too easy,
moving quickly from sin to salvation without any true struggle, any anguish
that we see in the biblical psalms that end without clear resolution. Similarly, I would have liked to see more
diversity in the poems, as they are all written as Shakespearean sonnets with
titles that match the first line of the poem.
While Glynn explores thematic diversity, she omits any exploration of
the form, which could have added to the collection’s complexity.
That said, Glynn’s title sets forth exactly what she sets out to do,
and her collection lives up to that expectation. She has written a collection of devotional
poems that explore biblical stories, ideas, and themes that people of faith
will find interesting and intriguing.
- Kevin Brown, Professor of English, Lee University. Author, most
recently, of Liturgical Calendar.
copyright 2015 by Kevin Brown - All Rights Reserved
