Soul Food

Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds

Neil Astley, Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Neil Astley, Pamela Robertson-Pearce

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781852247669
• eBook ISBN: 9781780375595
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Soul Food is a feast of thoughtful poems to stir the mind and feed the spirit. Drawn from many traditions, ranging from Rumi, Kabir and Blake, to Rilke, Emily Dickinson and Paul Celan, this wide-ranging selection includes enormously varied work by celebrated contemporary poets such as Jane Hirshfield, Denise Levertov, Thomas Merton and Mary Oliver, as well as by many lesser-known writers from all periods and places. The anthology opens with a series of poems on human life and spiritual sustenance, starting with Rumi: 'This being human is a guest house. / Each morning a new arrival…' The poems which follow explore many ways of keeping body and soul together, offering food for thought on knowing yourself, living with nature, who or what is God… All are universal illuminations of the meaning of life, speaking to readers of all faiths as well as to searchers and non-believers. Soul Food shows how poetry can help feed our hunger for meaning in times of spiritual starvation. Soul Food includes Anna Akhmatova, Maya Angelou, Coleman Barks, William Blake, John Burnside, Paul Celan, Chuang-Tzu, Emily Dickinson, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jane Hirshfield, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Kabir, Jane Kenyon, Lal Ded (Lalla), DH Lawrence, Denise Levertov, Thomas Merton, Czeslaw Milosz, Naomi Shihab Nye, Mary Oliver, Amrita Pritam, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, St John of the Cross, Edith Södergran, Anna Swir, Wislawa Szymborska, Shinkichi Takahashi, RS Thomas, and many others…

3

1. GUEST HOUSE

4

The Guest House

This being human is a guesthouse.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

RUMI
translated from the Persian
by coleman barks with john moyne

5

When the Shoe Fits

Ch’ui the draftsman

Could draw more perfect circles freehand

Than with a compass.

His fingers brought forth

Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind

Was meanwhile free and without concern

With what he was doing.

No application was needed

His mind was perfectly simple

And knew no obstacle.

So, when the shoe fits

The foot is forgotten,

When the belt fits

The belly is forgotten,

When the heart is right

“For” and “against” are forgotten.

No drives no compulsions,

No needs, no attractions:

Then your affairs

Are under control.

You are a free man.

Easy is right. Begin right

And you are easy.

Continue easy and you are right.

The right way to go easy

Is to forget the right way

And forget that the going is easy.

CHUANG-TZU
translated from the Chinese
by thomas merton

6

Daily Wages

In a corner of blue sky

The mill of night whistles,

A white thick smoke

Pours from the moon-chimney.

In dream’s many furnaces

Labourer love

Is stoking all the fires

I earn our meeting

Holding you for a while,

My day’s ...

Table of contents

• DESCRIPTION
• TITLE PAGE
• CONTENTS
• Fernando Pessoa – ‘To be great, be whole…’
• William Blake – from Auguries of Innocence
• 1.   GUEST HOUSE
• 2.   CARPE DIEM
• 3.   THE JOURNEY
• 4.   KNOWING YOURSELF
• 5.   BELIEVING BODY AND SOUL
• 6.   WHAT PRAYER?
• 7.   TALKING TO GOD
• 8.   THE BUD STANDS FOR ALL THINGS
• 9.   INNER LIGHT
• NOTES ON THE POETS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INDEX OF WRITERS
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• COPYRIGHT