August 18, 2025 • 20 mins
In this collection of conversations, Ben Palpant, author of Letters From The Mountain, has compiled his intimate, one-on-one interviews with seventeen powerful poets of the 21st century. These conversations cover an entire range of life experience, including grief, hope, culture, the writing craft, family life, and the imagination. Each poet speaks with remarkable candor and joy. Taken together, these interviews are a powerful reminder that poetry remains an essential expression of what it means to be human.
Franz Kafka famously said that "a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." And the words and thoughts contained here aim to wake up much that has become silent in each of us. They contain wisdom that may inspire, instruct, and strengthen, confronting us with the reality that words matter, that poetry matters, and that we matter.
You can purchase a copy of An Axe for the Frozen Sea in the Rabbit Room Store.
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S1 (00:00):
The following is brought to you in partnership with Oasis Audio.
Welcome to Rabbit Room Press Presents, a podcast series of
great audiobooks, one chapter at a time.
S2 (00:17):
An axe for the Frozen Sea by Ben Palpitate. Read
for you by the author. Chapter five Karen Annie Lee.
Karen Lee's office sits on the second floor of Blanchard Hall,
a beautiful sandstone building on Wheaton College's campus. It was
built in 1853 by Christian abolitionists and, according to a
(00:42):
sign by the front entrance, served as a stop on
the Underground Railroad. The stone stairs are worn smooth, proof
of a long history. She welcomes me joyfully and offers
caramel popcorn, a treat I eagerly accept. Through one large
window I can see the grounds. A basket of foil
wrapped chocolate sits on her desk with a sign that
(01:02):
says gratitude basket books surround us. Several books sit on
the table, including Lucy Shaw's latest Reversing Entropy. I'm so
glad you have Lucy Shaw's newest book, I say. It's
hard to believe that in her mid-nineties, she's still writing
for publication. Her longevity and creative productivity are inspiring, she says.
(01:25):
The title is provocative. I say. I feel like I'm
raising my children in a time of widespread entropy. You're
not alone, she replies. The last few years have had
a dramatic impact on us. How has the societal upheaval
impacted you, I ask? I joined Wheaton during the pandemic,
she says. There was so much change and uncertainty throughout
(01:46):
the world at the time. I assume you had to
suspend writing just to do your administrative work, I say. Actually,
poetry brought about immediacy and human connection in a time
of distancing. Faculty invited me to share devotionals with their
departments or with groups of students remotely. I decided to
write poems of hope and to share them during those devotionals.
(02:10):
People need poetry during times of crisis. Part of me
was worried about Chronos time carving out enough chronological time
to sit at my desk and wait for the writing
angel to arrive with inspiration, but God was providing kairos time,
the opportune moments that are pregnant with God's purpose. I
believe that God used these little poems to serve as
(02:31):
ambassadors of hope in the midst of a challenging season.
I bet you didn't see that coming when you took
the job, I say. Not at all. In fact, I
offered my writing to God as a sacrifice beforehand because
I understood that the administrative load would be heavy. In prayer,
I told the Lord, I love writing, but if you
want to take it from me, then I offer it freely.
(02:53):
I know that I am your poema. That is enough.
I will let my life be the poem. That's a
hard but necessary prayer, I say. Especially if poetry had
been a part of your life from a young age. Yes,
she says. I think I fell in love with poetry
early in life. I had a first grade teacher who
made little chapbooks with us. We would play small plants,
(03:17):
drawings and descriptions in these books. She would hold each
one up and read it to the class. Her delight
made us feel important. I remember one of those chapbooks
had a cardboard cover saddle stitched with yarn, and there
was a picture of my face on the cover. I
remember feeling like I was an author and showing it
to my classmates, who had their own chapbooks just like mine.
(03:39):
We need more teachers like her, I say. Why do
you write? Is it to explore life or a way
of talking to yourself? What compels you to write poems?
It depends on the season of life, she says. For
a long time, it was a way of processing my experiences.
Like everyone else, I'm affected by what's going on around me.
Poetry became a way of coming to terms with those things,
(04:01):
of exploring my emotions, of discovering what I truly thought
about a situation or an idea. Your poetry leans toward
the abstract. Yes. She says, one book reviewer said over
a decade ago that I risk the inaccessible. It was
a kind way of saying that my poetry can be
a little abstruse in a daring way. Some readers find
(04:23):
my poems not denotative enough and too elliptical. I don't
quibble with that. I have always been interested in abstract
ideas in theology and philosophy, as well as nature and
life experienced through our senses. I enjoy climbing into those
lofty heights out of valleys by way of poetry. But
when I was writing for a direct audience during a
time of crisis, I couldn't just brew ideas in my
(04:46):
own head and write something for myself or an ideal
reader out there. I had to write for people who
were walking a shared journey of uncertainty, loss, and grief.
There was a communal aspect to my writing, and the
poems became a little more like offerings. Do you feel
like those were better poems as a result? It's hard
(05:06):
to say. She says, I like so many kinds of poetry.
There are different modes or registers for writing poetry, and
they're all valuable. They may not all be universally appreciated,
but they're still valuable forms of expression. The poet Geoffrey
Hill wrote to love determinedly and well, and to be unfaithful.
(05:27):
There should have arisen particular broken forms to engage this.
Does poetry provide these broken forms? I ask what makes
broken forms the most effective way to engage our relational
and societal disintegration, the fracture of the human consciousness and
our lived experiences all around us, she says. But poetry
(05:48):
can help us kneel among the fragments, yes, even anneal them.
The Japanese art of kintsugi is a wonderful expression of
this kind of healing. An artist takes broken vessels and
glues them together. But instead of hiding the cracks, she
highlights the jagged breaks with gold paint. This artistic act
raises the ordinary, humdrum object to something transcendent and beautiful
(06:12):
in a similar way. The broken yet fluid form of
free verse, with its irregular margins and fragmentary utterances, can
raise our broken experiences to something extraordinary. Because they're broken,
poems can bleed light. What do you mean, I ask?
I'm not sure how else to say it. Poetry is
(06:33):
a shared experience, even a form of communion, insofar as
it is an exchange of intimate thoughts or emotions. As
a poet, I believe that words matter. But maybe there
is a dimension that draws us closer to the musical realm,
where language is a form of embodied experience. Instead of
striving to find precise meanings or representation all the time,
(06:56):
maybe we should let the words float over us. Let
them bring us to a place of Of contemplation. You're
calling us to experience poetry as a form of meaning making.
That's not transactional. I shouldn't approach poetry like I approach
an essay. That's correct, she says. Even if a poem
eludes meaning upon a first reading, upon further reading, or
(07:17):
upon further contemplation, it might open onto new revelations. That's
true of the human heart as well, from the pathos
of emotions to the benthos, the bottom of the sea.
There is so much unknown to explore. Who are the
poets that are your example in this exploration of the
human experience, I ask. Emily Dickinson is at the top
(07:40):
of that list. Sometimes her poems are difficult to understand,
but she never shies away from engaging what is happening
in her heart or even in her brain. In a
society of distraction and anxiety, her poems bring us back
to authentic human connection spiritually and corporeally, as well as
metaphysical questions. Stations. The Wheaton motto is For Christ and
(08:03):
His Kingdom. I remind her. Do you share that vision
for your poetry in this season? She says, my poems
serve my immediate community, which makes my writing an act
of worship. I often think in terms of cultural and
spiritual work when it comes to writing poems. If this
poem travels very far, will it be strong enough to
(08:24):
do the spiritual work necessary to build Christ's kingdom, even
if just a little? It becomes a humble offering, a
way to bear Christ's message of hope. So much of
that ministry is out of your control, I suggest. Once
your poems are in the world, they take on a
life of their own. That often happens, she replies. The
(08:44):
poems grow legs like grasshoppers and do wonderful things I
wouldn't have ever imagined. Colossians says, Christ is before all
things I say and holds all things together. The book
of acts says that in Christ we live and move
and have our being. You strike me as a poet
is leaning hard into those revelations, into the mystery of God,
and into the mystery that is the self. I hope so,
(09:07):
she says. I think I'm trying to investigate or discern
the complexities of the creator's weaving that holds all things together.
To discover more about myself and more about the one
who made me without Christ, I think my poems just
fall apart. Like me, my poems find their meaning, their resolution,
and their inspiration in Christ. When I'm truly awake to
(09:29):
the presence of the divine in the ordinary. My poems
point back to Christ like mini compasses. In your poems,
songs of comfort, you write, God is waiting for us
to pay attention. What is the poet's role in helping
us pay attention? Would you say that poets are God's
emissaries to help us wake up? I love that idea,
(09:50):
she says. Yes, I think poets are God's emissaries. Poetry
is a vehicle for attention. It can create the space
in us that makes revelation possible. There are so many
ways in which we can pay attention. The mind, the heart,
the imagination. We're familiar with Lectio Divina, a method of
praying with Scripture or divine reading. But there's also Visio
(10:11):
Divina as a way of praying with the eyes or
divine seeing. Writing poetry helps me pay attention to what's
going on around me and inside me. Reading poetry can
help me do that too. Some people listen in chronos
time and some listen in kairos time. I say, would
(10:32):
you say that the best poets seem to listen in
kairos time? That they're listening to a higher register? I
think some of my favorite poets have a high antenna,
she says. Are they born with it? Maybe some of
them are, but I think it's really a matter of practice.
It's like a spiritual discipline, a kind of mindfulness that
can be developed. Solitude is an important part of my
(10:55):
poetic practice. I do need solitude so that I can
declutter the noise in my head. At the same time,
I have a deep appreciation for the importance of community.
If a poem is going to speak to readers, it
needs to come from a place of shared experience. I
wrote a poem about artificial intelligence, for example, because it's
been a hot topic among my friends and colleagues how
(11:17):
it impacts content generation, pedagogy, research, and our overall engagement
with the information community. Feeds you. And you feed community,
I say. That's my hope. Let's talk about artificial intelligence
for a minute. It's a field that is growing incredibly quickly.
Do you think it's a threat? I don't fear artificial intelligence.
(11:41):
It gives us a great chance to ask critical and
evaluative questions to get better at what we do. I
think there are spiritual and existential limitations to artificial intelligence.
It only knows what we tell it. So, for example,
can I share the gospel? Well, it can offer the information,
the requisite Scripture passages, for passages, for instance. But isn't
(12:02):
there an element of human connection necessary to bridge the gap?
I think so. Can I lead someone through the sinner's prayer? Technically, yes.
But there's something missing. We're made in the image of God,
which means we're all creative. Does I threaten that divine
attribute in us? Will we end up abdicating creativity to
(12:22):
computers that we have trained to do our work for us?
I ask? I think that's a real possibility, she says.
In technical professions that require analyzing data for patterns, for example,
I can see many possibilities for artificial intelligence. But with
work that has a spiritual dimension or an interrelational nature,
we might forget how to think for ourselves or how
(12:43):
to create for ourselves. Some poets have been experimenting with AI,
collaborating with it. I think that's worth doing as a
conceptual form of digital poetics. But concurrently, I would also
caution against wholesale outsourcing of human thought. Li-young Lee once
said that those who read theology and poetry might have
(13:03):
heard of the burning bush, but God calls poets to
sit in the burning bush and tell us about their
direct encounter. I can't sit in the burning bush, I say.
What an amazing way to think about poets and their work,
she says. Yes, that spiritual experience is a threshold I
don't think I can or should cross. But it might
(13:24):
be able to fake religious experience enough to look like
the real thing, I add. Yes, but only because we
taught it to parrot the experience, she replies. I was
reading a poet the other day, I continue, who suggested that,
generally speaking, we lack the ability to distinguish between authentic
and inauthentic religious experience. He compared it to the Beatles
(13:46):
and the monkeys. They may sound similar to the untrained ear,
but the former is authentic, while the latter is derivative.
The same could be said of the Heavenly Encounter. Yes,
like the platonic simulacrum, which is memetic and a couple
times removed from the original. There's something deep inside us
that longs for that authentic encounter. I guess what I'm
(14:07):
saying is that I can be a useful tool, even
with creativity, but we need to intentionally remind ourselves that
it's just a tool. It's not a replacement for human engagement.
I'm hopeful that we can do that. So human connection
will always need humans, I say yes, I continue. Josef
(14:28):
Pieper says that music, the fine arts, poetry, anything that
festively raises up human existence and thereby constitutes its true
riches all derive their life from a hidden root. And
this root is a contemplation which is turned toward God
and the world so as to affirm them. It sounds
to me like he's saying that the poet's job is
(14:50):
to echo God's words in Genesis chapter one, to show
what is good and to declare it is good. I'm
in total agreement, she says. I'm interested in seeking where
God is at work, where God is creating good in
a fallen world. Sometimes my poems spring from some harrowing
event or the darkness we all experience, but it's through
(15:12):
the poem that I'm trying to climb into the light
I find so much to affirm in life. You like
to take everyday moments and raise them to something transcendent.
For example, one of my favorites is in your poem
On the Flavor of Awe. In the poem, you're eating
ice cream. You ask, what is the flavor of unmerited grace?
(15:34):
Just whisper Hosanna into a round of divinity. When no
one is listening, what can I say? I love ice cream,
she says. Well, that makes two of us. Your decision
to put a sensual term flavor to something abstract and theological,
like unmerited grace, made me stop and pay attention. I'm
not sure I have a question on this. Maybe I
(15:57):
just want to hear you tell me how those ideas
come to you. I'm afraid you're going to laugh, she says.
I was at an ice cream shop and saw a
flavor called Divinity. It made me ask, what would divinity
taste like? I decided it must taste like awe. Then
my brain started asking other questions. What is or what
does it look like when the divine is tasted in
(16:18):
our daily human experience? There's a sublime layer to all
our existence. Even eating ice cream. That's why I like
mingling the concrete and the abstract. It's so interesting. Eating
ice cream, I say, is a delightful experience, but not
all of life is delightful. We experience adversity, conflict, and deprivation.
(16:39):
How does poetry, or the writing of poetry help you
navigate those seasons of life? One of my favorite places
to visit is the Mission San Juan Capistrano in California.
There's an enormous millstone in the garden that was used
for crushing olives. Whenever I visit, I put my hands
on the stone and pray. I draw strength from this
image because sometimes it feels like a stone is passing
(17:02):
over me, crushing me over and over. I need to
be reminded that without crushing, there can be no oil.
When the olives are crushed, you get a messy pumice
that doesn't taste good and doesn't look beautiful. But after
a while, the golden oil runs. In some respects, I'm
just an olive being crushed, so that oil or whatever
(17:23):
I write can serve as a balm and as an anointing.
That's a hope filled picture, I say. I want to
be a hope filled person. So I draw inspiration from
hopeful images, she replies. It takes a great deal of
patience and courage to sit beneath the stone, I suggest.
I think you're correct, she says. We're so focused on
(17:45):
self preservation, or on our own agendas that we often
forget what God might be doing for us and through us.
Jeremiah chapter 33, verse three says, call to me, and
I will answer you, and I will tell you great
and hidden things that you have not known. I say
you're trying to stay attuned to the voice of God,
(18:06):
even in hardship. Yes, she replies, that's right. It's Psalm
chapter 42, verse seven, deep. Calling unto deep. Here's one
of my favorite poems by Karen Annie Lee titled Spiritus
Mundi on Artificial Intelligence. You shadow us expanding like a
(18:28):
data cloud without mist. Neither the largest tree system in
the world named Pando Aspen forest of clones, nor the
honey mushroom, a fungus lacing its invisible hyphae over a
couple thousand acres older than you and I in our
deepest seas of information. No distinction exists between my voice
(18:50):
and your artfulness, whispering about a ransom or muttering about
gift cards. Your end stopped. Rhymed. Doggerel does not say
much about your source texts. I ask you about me.
Who am I? What do you know about my memories?
My life's purpose on this pear shaped planet where I
(19:10):
am a half century old. Can you tell your hands
from mine? Are you tethered to our sleep? Do you
appear in our dreams? How many sheep do you lead
back to the flock? You do not know me. In fact,
you say nothing about my avocation. You must be trained.
And I have taught you nothing yet.
S1 (19:33):
An axe for the Frozen Sea is published by Rabbit
Room Press. The audio book is published by Oasis Audio.
Copyright by Ben Pallant, 2024. Music by Chris Badeker.
The following is brought to you in partnership with Oasis Audio.
Welcome to Rabbit Room Press Presents, a podcast series of
great audiobooks, one chapter at a time.
S2 (00:17):
An axe for the Frozen Sea by Ben Palpitate. Read
for you by the author. Chapter five Karen Annie Lee.
Karen Lee's office sits on the second floor of Blanchard Hall,
a beautiful sandstone building on Wheaton College's campus. It was
built in 1853 by Christian abolitionists and, according to a
(00:42):
sign by the front entrance, served as a stop on
the Underground Railroad. The stone stairs are worn smooth, proof
of a long history. She welcomes me joyfully and offers
caramel popcorn, a treat I eagerly accept. Through one large
window I can see the grounds. A basket of foil
wrapped chocolate sits on her desk with a sign that
(01:02):
says gratitude basket books surround us. Several books sit on
the table, including Lucy Shaw's latest Reversing Entropy. I'm so
glad you have Lucy Shaw's newest book, I say. It's
hard to believe that in her mid-nineties, she's still writing
for publication. Her longevity and creative productivity are inspiring, she says.
(01:25):
The title is provocative. I say. I feel like I'm
raising my children in a time of widespread entropy. You're
not alone, she replies. The last few years have had
a dramatic impact on us. How has the societal upheaval
impacted you, I ask? I joined Wheaton during the pandemic,
she says. There was so much change and uncertainty throughout
(01:46):
the world at the time. I assume you had to
suspend writing just to do your administrative work, I say. Actually,
poetry brought about immediacy and human connection in a time
of distancing. Faculty invited me to share devotionals with their
departments or with groups of students remotely. I decided to
write poems of hope and to share them during those devotionals.
(02:10):
People need poetry during times of crisis. Part of me
was worried about Chronos time carving out enough chronological time
to sit at my desk and wait for the writing
angel to arrive with inspiration, but God was providing kairos time,
the opportune moments that are pregnant with God's purpose. I
believe that God used these little poems to serve as
(02:31):
ambassadors of hope in the midst of a challenging season.
I bet you didn't see that coming when you took
the job, I say. Not at all. In fact, I
offered my writing to God as a sacrifice beforehand because
I understood that the administrative load would be heavy. In prayer,
I told the Lord, I love writing, but if you
want to take it from me, then I offer it freely.
(02:53):
I know that I am your poema. That is enough.
I will let my life be the poem. That's a
hard but necessary prayer, I say. Especially if poetry had
been a part of your life from a young age. Yes,
she says. I think I fell in love with poetry
early in life. I had a first grade teacher who
made little chapbooks with us. We would play small plants,
(03:17):
drawings and descriptions in these books. She would hold each
one up and read it to the class. Her delight
made us feel important. I remember one of those chapbooks
had a cardboard cover saddle stitched with yarn, and there
was a picture of my face on the cover. I
remember feeling like I was an author and showing it
to my classmates, who had their own chapbooks just like mine.
(03:39):
We need more teachers like her, I say. Why do
you write? Is it to explore life or a way
of talking to yourself? What compels you to write poems?
It depends on the season of life, she says. For
a long time, it was a way of processing my experiences.
Like everyone else, I'm affected by what's going on around me.
Poetry became a way of coming to terms with those things,
(04:01):
of exploring my emotions, of discovering what I truly thought
about a situation or an idea. Your poetry leans toward
the abstract. Yes. She says, one book reviewer said over
a decade ago that I risk the inaccessible. It was
a kind way of saying that my poetry can be
a little abstruse in a daring way. Some readers find
(04:23):
my poems not denotative enough and too elliptical. I don't
quibble with that. I have always been interested in abstract
ideas in theology and philosophy, as well as nature and
life experienced through our senses. I enjoy climbing into those
lofty heights out of valleys by way of poetry. But
when I was writing for a direct audience during a
time of crisis, I couldn't just brew ideas in my
(04:46):
own head and write something for myself or an ideal
reader out there. I had to write for people who
were walking a shared journey of uncertainty, loss, and grief.
There was a communal aspect to my writing, and the
poems became a little more like offerings. Do you feel
like those were better poems as a result? It's hard
(05:06):
to say. She says, I like so many kinds of poetry.
There are different modes or registers for writing poetry, and
they're all valuable. They may not all be universally appreciated,
but they're still valuable forms of expression. The poet Geoffrey
Hill wrote to love determinedly and well, and to be unfaithful.
(05:27):
There should have arisen particular broken forms to engage this.
Does poetry provide these broken forms? I ask what makes
broken forms the most effective way to engage our relational
and societal disintegration, the fracture of the human consciousness and
our lived experiences all around us, she says. But poetry
(05:48):
can help us kneel among the fragments, yes, even anneal them.
The Japanese art of kintsugi is a wonderful expression of
this kind of healing. An artist takes broken vessels and
glues them together. But instead of hiding the cracks, she
highlights the jagged breaks with gold paint. This artistic act
raises the ordinary, humdrum object to something transcendent and beautiful
(06:12):
in a similar way. The broken yet fluid form of
free verse, with its irregular margins and fragmentary utterances, can
raise our broken experiences to something extraordinary. Because they're broken,
poems can bleed light. What do you mean, I ask?
I'm not sure how else to say it. Poetry is
(06:33):
a shared experience, even a form of communion, insofar as
it is an exchange of intimate thoughts or emotions. As
a poet, I believe that words matter. But maybe there
is a dimension that draws us closer to the musical realm,
where language is a form of embodied experience. Instead of
striving to find precise meanings or representation all the time,
(06:56):
maybe we should let the words float over us. Let
them bring us to a place of Of contemplation. You're
calling us to experience poetry as a form of meaning making.
That's not transactional. I shouldn't approach poetry like I approach
an essay. That's correct, she says. Even if a poem
eludes meaning upon a first reading, upon further reading, or
(07:17):
upon further contemplation, it might open onto new revelations. That's
true of the human heart as well, from the pathos
of emotions to the benthos, the bottom of the sea.
There is so much unknown to explore. Who are the
poets that are your example in this exploration of the
human experience, I ask. Emily Dickinson is at the top
(07:40):
of that list. Sometimes her poems are difficult to understand,
but she never shies away from engaging what is happening
in her heart or even in her brain. In a
society of distraction and anxiety, her poems bring us back
to authentic human connection spiritually and corporeally, as well as
metaphysical questions. Stations. The Wheaton motto is For Christ and
(08:03):
His Kingdom. I remind her. Do you share that vision
for your poetry in this season? She says, my poems
serve my immediate community, which makes my writing an act
of worship. I often think in terms of cultural and
spiritual work when it comes to writing poems. If this
poem travels very far, will it be strong enough to
(08:24):
do the spiritual work necessary to build Christ's kingdom, even
if just a little? It becomes a humble offering, a
way to bear Christ's message of hope. So much of
that ministry is out of your control, I suggest. Once
your poems are in the world, they take on a
life of their own. That often happens, she replies. The
(08:44):
poems grow legs like grasshoppers and do wonderful things I
wouldn't have ever imagined. Colossians says, Christ is before all
things I say and holds all things together. The book
of acts says that in Christ we live and move
and have our being. You strike me as a poet
is leaning hard into those revelations, into the mystery of God,
and into the mystery that is the self. I hope so,
(09:07):
she says. I think I'm trying to investigate or discern
the complexities of the creator's weaving that holds all things together.
To discover more about myself and more about the one
who made me without Christ, I think my poems just
fall apart. Like me, my poems find their meaning, their resolution,
and their inspiration in Christ. When I'm truly awake to
(09:29):
the presence of the divine in the ordinary. My poems
point back to Christ like mini compasses. In your poems,
songs of comfort, you write, God is waiting for us
to pay attention. What is the poet's role in helping
us pay attention? Would you say that poets are God's
emissaries to help us wake up? I love that idea,
(09:50):
she says. Yes, I think poets are God's emissaries. Poetry
is a vehicle for attention. It can create the space
in us that makes revelation possible. There are so many
ways in which we can pay attention. The mind, the heart,
the imagination. We're familiar with Lectio Divina, a method of
praying with Scripture or divine reading. But there's also Visio
(10:11):
Divina as a way of praying with the eyes or
divine seeing. Writing poetry helps me pay attention to what's
going on around me and inside me. Reading poetry can
help me do that too. Some people listen in chronos
time and some listen in kairos time. I say, would
(10:32):
you say that the best poets seem to listen in
kairos time? That they're listening to a higher register? I
think some of my favorite poets have a high antenna,
she says. Are they born with it? Maybe some of
them are, but I think it's really a matter of practice.
It's like a spiritual discipline, a kind of mindfulness that
can be developed. Solitude is an important part of my
(10:55):
poetic practice. I do need solitude so that I can
declutter the noise in my head. At the same time,
I have a deep appreciation for the importance of community.
If a poem is going to speak to readers, it
needs to come from a place of shared experience. I
wrote a poem about artificial intelligence, for example, because it's
been a hot topic among my friends and colleagues how
(11:17):
it impacts content generation, pedagogy, research, and our overall engagement
with the information community. Feeds you. And you feed community,
I say. That's my hope. Let's talk about artificial intelligence
for a minute. It's a field that is growing incredibly quickly.
Do you think it's a threat? I don't fear artificial intelligence.
(11:41):
It gives us a great chance to ask critical and
evaluative questions to get better at what we do. I
think there are spiritual and existential limitations to artificial intelligence.
It only knows what we tell it. So, for example,
can I share the gospel? Well, it can offer the information,
the requisite Scripture passages, for passages, for instance. But isn't
(12:02):
there an element of human connection necessary to bridge the gap?
I think so. Can I lead someone through the sinner's prayer? Technically, yes.
But there's something missing. We're made in the image of God,
which means we're all creative. Does I threaten that divine
attribute in us? Will we end up abdicating creativity to
(12:22):
computers that we have trained to do our work for us?
I ask? I think that's a real possibility, she says.
In technical professions that require analyzing data for patterns, for example,
I can see many possibilities for artificial intelligence. But with
work that has a spiritual dimension or an interrelational nature,
we might forget how to think for ourselves or how
(12:43):
to create for ourselves. Some poets have been experimenting with AI,
collaborating with it. I think that's worth doing as a
conceptual form of digital poetics. But concurrently, I would also
caution against wholesale outsourcing of human thought. Li-young Lee once
said that those who read theology and poetry might have
(13:03):
heard of the burning bush, but God calls poets to
sit in the burning bush and tell us about their
direct encounter. I can't sit in the burning bush, I say.
What an amazing way to think about poets and their work,
she says. Yes, that spiritual experience is a threshold I
don't think I can or should cross. But it might
(13:24):
be able to fake religious experience enough to look like
the real thing, I add. Yes, but only because we
taught it to parrot the experience, she replies. I was
reading a poet the other day, I continue, who suggested that,
generally speaking, we lack the ability to distinguish between authentic
and inauthentic religious experience. He compared it to the Beatles
(13:46):
and the monkeys. They may sound similar to the untrained ear,
but the former is authentic, while the latter is derivative.
The same could be said of the Heavenly Encounter. Yes,
like the platonic simulacrum, which is memetic and a couple
times removed from the original. There's something deep inside us
that longs for that authentic encounter. I guess what I'm
(14:07):
saying is that I can be a useful tool, even
with creativity, but we need to intentionally remind ourselves that
it's just a tool. It's not a replacement for human engagement.
I'm hopeful that we can do that. So human connection
will always need humans, I say yes, I continue. Josef
(14:28):
Pieper says that music, the fine arts, poetry, anything that
festively raises up human existence and thereby constitutes its true
riches all derive their life from a hidden root. And
this root is a contemplation which is turned toward God
and the world so as to affirm them. It sounds
to me like he's saying that the poet's job is
(14:50):
to echo God's words in Genesis chapter one, to show
what is good and to declare it is good. I'm
in total agreement, she says. I'm interested in seeking where
God is at work, where God is creating good in
a fallen world. Sometimes my poems spring from some harrowing
event or the darkness we all experience, but it's through
(15:12):
the poem that I'm trying to climb into the light
I find so much to affirm in life. You like
to take everyday moments and raise them to something transcendent.
For example, one of my favorites is in your poem
On the Flavor of Awe. In the poem, you're eating
ice cream. You ask, what is the flavor of unmerited grace?
(15:34):
Just whisper Hosanna into a round of divinity. When no
one is listening, what can I say? I love ice cream,
she says. Well, that makes two of us. Your decision
to put a sensual term flavor to something abstract and theological,
like unmerited grace, made me stop and pay attention. I'm
not sure I have a question on this. Maybe I
(15:57):
just want to hear you tell me how those ideas
come to you. I'm afraid you're going to laugh, she says.
I was at an ice cream shop and saw a
flavor called Divinity. It made me ask, what would divinity
taste like? I decided it must taste like awe. Then
my brain started asking other questions. What is or what
does it look like when the divine is tasted in
(16:18):
our daily human experience? There's a sublime layer to all
our existence. Even eating ice cream. That's why I like
mingling the concrete and the abstract. It's so interesting. Eating
ice cream, I say, is a delightful experience, but not
all of life is delightful. We experience adversity, conflict, and deprivation.
(16:39):
How does poetry, or the writing of poetry help you
navigate those seasons of life? One of my favorite places
to visit is the Mission San Juan Capistrano in California.
There's an enormous millstone in the garden that was used
for crushing olives. Whenever I visit, I put my hands
on the stone and pray. I draw strength from this
image because sometimes it feels like a stone is passing
(17:02):
over me, crushing me over and over. I need to
be reminded that without crushing, there can be no oil.
When the olives are crushed, you get a messy pumice
that doesn't taste good and doesn't look beautiful. But after
a while, the golden oil runs. In some respects, I'm
just an olive being crushed, so that oil or whatever
(17:23):
I write can serve as a balm and as an anointing.
That's a hope filled picture, I say. I want to
be a hope filled person. So I draw inspiration from
hopeful images, she replies. It takes a great deal of
patience and courage to sit beneath the stone, I suggest.
I think you're correct, she says. We're so focused on
(17:45):
self preservation, or on our own agendas that we often
forget what God might be doing for us and through us.
Jeremiah chapter 33, verse three says, call to me, and
I will answer you, and I will tell you great
and hidden things that you have not known. I say
you're trying to stay attuned to the voice of God,
(18:06):
even in hardship. Yes, she replies, that's right. It's Psalm
chapter 42, verse seven, deep. Calling unto deep. Here's one
of my favorite poems by Karen Annie Lee titled Spiritus
Mundi on Artificial Intelligence. You shadow us expanding like a
(18:28):
data cloud without mist. Neither the largest tree system in
the world named Pando Aspen forest of clones, nor the
honey mushroom, a fungus lacing its invisible hyphae over a
couple thousand acres older than you and I in our
deepest seas of information. No distinction exists between my voice
(18:50):
and your artfulness, whispering about a ransom or muttering about
gift cards. Your end stopped. Rhymed. Doggerel does not say
much about your source texts. I ask you about me.
Who am I? What do you know about my memories?
My life's purpose on this pear shaped planet where I
(19:10):
am a half century old. Can you tell your hands
from mine? Are you tethered to our sleep? Do you
appear in our dreams? How many sheep do you lead
back to the flock? You do not know me. In fact,
you say nothing about my avocation. You must be trained.
And I have taught you nothing yet.
S1 (19:33):
An axe for the Frozen Sea is published by Rabbit
Room Press. The audio book is published by Oasis Audio.
Copyright by Ben Pallant, 2024. Music by Chris Badeker.
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