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Analysis:
Bruce
Beasley’s
All
Soul Parts Returned
“a leper’s lips
unswelled for prayer”
Under what conditions must we
formulate our prayers?
As though a leper’s scabbed lips
unswelled enough for speech”
--page 81 Excerpt, “Revised Catechism: ON PRAYER”
Now
on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and
Galilee. As he was going into a village,
ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a
loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they
went, they were cleansed. One of them,
when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked
him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked,
“Were not all
ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?
Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”
--Luke
17: 11-19
BOA Editions LTD published Bruce Beasley’s
poetry collection in its American Poets Continuum Series 163 All
Soul Parts Returned on October 10, 2017; Copy Art by J.B. Murray
courtesy of the J.B. Murray Estate; Cover Design by Sandy Knight; and Interior
Design and Composition by Richard Foerster.
Beasley
has written seven other poetry collections:
Theophobia, BOA Editions LTD; The Corpse Flower,
University of Washington Press; Lord Brain, University of Georgia
Press; Signs and Abominations, Wesleyan; Summer Mystagogia, University
Press of Colorado; The Creation, Ohio State University Press; and Spirituals,
Wesleyan.
Beasley’s All
Soul Parts Returned consists of 123 pages of poetry divided into six
parts:
Prologue Poem:
Torn-to-Pieces-Hood;
Part 1 Thou Must Leave;
Part 11 Disorientation Psalm for Schopenhauer;
Part 111 Hymeneal;
Part 1V The Sixth Dust;
Part V The Man of the Ordinary.
And Nonordinary to the Poems:
Notes and Definitions
Prologue
Poem: Torn-To-Pieces-Hood
In the first poem of
the collection “Torn-To-Pieces-Hood” the speaker of the poem’s soul is shredded
and dismembered into tiny pieces, each piece still alive, each full of despair,
shattered needing to be once again, whole.
The speaker of the
poem is seeking to assemble all the pieces of his soul and put them together
properly in order to make himself whole and he does this through prayer and
meditation in the Catechism, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. Along the way he experiences doubt,
depression and yet manages to pray and meditate. The speaker of the poem calls his condition of
shredded soul mass: A mass is a collection of incoherent parts seen nevertheless as a singular entity. A/ mass of errors. Torn-to-pieces-hood as a mass of rent
remainders that populate, all/ unknowingly, the ordinary.
He then realizes that the damaging of the soul
is the same element that consists of the healing of the soul: So Despair can kill what cannot die. Despair’s a mortal sin, one that makes the
soul/ rejoice, ironically, in its own mortality. (Below Photo: The Guibourg Mass by Henry de Malvost in the book La Satanisme et la Mogie by Jules Bois - Paris 1903)
Part 1: Thou Must Leave
In the poem “Me Meaneth” the calf is “meaning” in the pasture, which is
defined by Google search as communicating “what
is meant by a word, text, prayer concept, or action or to communicate something
that is not directly expressed.”
In the third stanza the lambs that have
been weaned from their mothers still “mither”
which means “to pester constantly or
make an unnecessary fuss.”
The calf and the lamb are poetic images
of how humanity should pray – with sincerity and with the consistent cries of a
newborn baby – never silencing its cries until it is given its mother’s
milk. (Above Right: Prophet Elijah as fire from Heaven consume the sacrifice. Attributed to James Tissot)
impervious to any
further meanings, as/ in incapable of grieving ever again.
In “Reading Jesus Again, With A New
Prescription” the speaker of the poem prays to Jesus a prayer of doubt, of
questioning: My hands keep snatching at air./ Before Abraham was, I am, You said. And still are:/
I hope
You are. 
No matter how strenuous the speaker of the poem
prays for Jesus to reveal Himself to him, Jesus continues to remain hidden from
him which turns his doubt into anger: I’ve been doing what You told me not to: praying/ with vain repetition./ Amen, amen, amen, amen,
amen amen,/ many of my supplications go:/ terminous without genesis, Apocalypse/
with no Torah. (Left Above: The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Caravaggio)
Part II Disorientation
Psalm For Schopenhauer
The speaker of the poem scolds the
pessimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in the poem second section
“Disorientation Psalm for Schopenhauer.” (Portrait of Arthur Schopenhauer by Jules Lunteschulz in 1855)
The speaker of the poem compares Warren’s purpose
of living to what purpose Adam Lana had in slaughtering the Sandy Hook
Elementary children (Left) or what purpose God had in allowing, controlling, or not
stopping Adam Lana (Below Right) from killing those innocent children? And the speaker of the poem comes to the
conclusion that this is a question no one – not even God – can possibly
answer: The point is, we can’t get the
point.
The next few lines the speaker of the
poem portrays God as an animal – one that devours pleasure for Himself from
humanity: Our pleasure’s never the point./ It’s
God whose pleasure counts. We’re here/ to
please Him. That’s our First
Purpose. He watches us/ while we
sleep. He sniffs and licks His lips.
Part 111 Hymeneal
In
“Part III Hymeneal” the marriage between lovers is celebrated with the prayer
between birds; and the sincerity and authenticity of these love songs between
two lovers is questioned: is it sincere
and authentic or is simply the lovers mimicking the same songs they were taught
by their ancestors? This is a question
that could apply to the individual praying to his or her god. Is it sincere or simply mimicry? (Above Left - Bruce and his wife Suzanne Paola. Copyright granted by Bruce Beasley)
Section IV The Sixth
Dust
In “Revised Catechism On Prayer” the speaker of
the poem asks numerous questions throughout the piece: What is prayer? When is a good time to pray? How do we gain the confidence that our
prayers have actually been heard and answered?
The speaker of the poem answers his own question: As though a leper’s scabbed lips/ unswelled
enough for speech.
And the questions continue in “On Prayer:” How might
our prayers to be expected to alter the will of God? And in “On
Catechism:”
“May we question also that which is not dubitable?”
Part V The Mass of the Ordinary
In
the poem “Kyrie” the speaker of the poem asks another question: Lord:
are You/ particularly pleased with the way I am?
The one individual in scripture who can honestly
say “yes” to that question is the same person Beasley refers to when he writes: As though a leper’s scabbed lips/ unswelled
enough for speech.
This same leper who
This “thank you” impressed Jesus and touched His
heart to where he tells the already cured leper: “Rise and Go; for your faith has made you
well.” The leper has already
been cured of his leprosy by Jesus so what did Jesus mean by “your faith has
made you well.” We don’t know
for sure perhaps Jesus prevented him from future physical harm; granted him a
long and fruitful life; a peaceful death in his old age. Or it could be simply that Jesus imparted His
wisdom to the leper by answering all the questions that Bruce Beasley asks in All
Soul Parts Returned.
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