Beliefs and Blasphemies: A Collection of Poems

by Virginia Adair

Beliefs and Blasphemies exhibits the same qualities--accessibility, deep feeling, wisdom, humor, and technical brilliance--that made Virginia Hamilton Adair's first collection of poems, Ants on the Melon, into a bestseller and a literary landmark. Here Mrs. Adair devotes her attention to a single theme, religion, but in her brilliant performance the theme's variations turn out to be wide and deep--from reverence to iconoclasm, from comedy to profundity, from joy to lament. If you are looking for Hallmark platitudes or E-Z faith, look elsewhere.

In "Saving the Songs," for example, we reconsider Martin Luther's penchant for recycling barroom tunes into "Said Luther of the singing in saloons,/'Why should the devil have the choicest tunes?'" More soberly, in "The Reassem-blage," we are asked to test the extremes of the Christian version of the hereafter--"one a verdict brutal beyond imagination,/the other by most reports an eternity of boredom"--against our hearts' hopes. The conclusion? "Some myths are too terrible for our believing." "Goddesses First" muses about the primacy of female deities in many religious myths. "Choosing" uses the poet's virtual blindness to explain her celebration of the only distinction her "frail vision can discern": the literal difference between night and day. Zen temples and the chapel at a state mental hospital, animism and meditation, whores and angels--this curious, witty, and compassionate sensibility encompasses them all.
Virginia Hamilton Adair is a uniquely American poet--restless in her lyrical investigations, hopeful and honest, rigorous in her formal accomplishments, spontaneous in her emotions. Beliefs and Blasphemies will appeal to anyone who has ever thought about first things or final things--anyone who enjoys speculating about how we got here and where we're going--and it will reconfirm its author's stature as a national treasure.

Genres: Poetry

109 pages, Hardcover

First published July 13, 1998

Reviews

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My poetry preference tends toward more ornate -- often, I think, baroque -- language. These poems are simple and direct, sometimes bordering on facile. A slightly rebellious edge to her religious musings is all that keeps some of them from descending into Reader's Digest territory. Here's Judas, which at least had the virtue of making me smile:

The devil said, “When I was tempting Jesus,
I told him I could make him rich as Croesus.
But he misjudged my power, the pious scoffer.
His televangelists took up my offer.”

Some versus seemed like they were on the cusp of blossoming, and then abruptly ended. The Playground of the Dead, the sole reason for the third star, has lingered with me, especially the ending lines:

“Come to the playground of the dead,” we sing,
swinging from the bars of the jungle gym.
And sooner or later, everyone comes.

[Mary Charest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this exquisite poet a few years back. She has an amazing grasp of the English language that would rival Dickenson (another favorite of mine.) The grief over the suicide of her husband comes through in a most poignant way.

She is an excellent writer. I don't know why it took me so long to read one of her books. I wish I had read the first one first, (Ants On The Melon.) I still haven't read that on, but, it is on my "to read list."

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

a disappointment after Ants on the Melon

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd probably give this a higher rating if I hadn't had such high expectations after reading her previous book, Ants on the Melon. Maybe that's not fair of me? Oh well.