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Nov. 25,1964 THE SKYSCRAPER Page Three Award Winners Read Works During Annual Poetry Day The winged courser, Pegasus, did everything Friday night, Nov. 13, Poetry magazine's Tenth Annual Poetry Day, but honor the black tie set with the Twist in heroic couplets. However, while Pegasus remained poetically discreet, John Berryman, fighting the effects of an over-ambitious afternoon of elbow bending, often settled for less. Mr. Berryman, last year's Russell Louis award winner, read various songs from Book I of his well-known Dream Poems, and instructed his audience to be careful in associat ing Henry, the poem's hero, with the author. For what it was worth, Berryman strongly cau tioned: I firmly divorce myself from Henry's politics and morals. Satirizes Ike The powerful, if not heavy, hand of satire was keenly felt as the blows were executed in The Lay of Ike. Prefacing the poem, Berry man snidely comments that his poem as a tribute to the supreme indolence of that universal incom petency was manifested in the last campaign. Gwendolyn Brooks, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was second on the al phabetically arranged program. A native Chicagoan, she writes about the 47th street area with a com passion and grace that is at once touching and thought-provoking. Her reading of I Love Those Little Booths, the little booths that pro tect and dissect, and its compan- by Pat Porwicz ion poem Beverly Hills, Chicago, where even trouble wears a gold- flecked beautiful banner, were emotionally driving. A poet whose merits lie in selec tivity of images, Gwendolyn Brooks can capture the complete austerity of a tenement with a single phrase like walls paneled with fake pine. In a review of her selected poems in a recent issue of Poetry, critic Bruce Cutler said, ... Her tech nique is really useful to her because there is a visible person behind her poems, and you feel that she 'writes committed.' She is one of the very best poets. Awakens Audience When introducing Denise Lever- tov, a tall dark haired young woman, Edward W. Rosenheim, Jr., professor of English at Chicago University, commented that the poetess writes to awaken sleepers other than by shock. As Miss Lev- ertov read To a Snake, a hymn like poem to a green snake coiled around her neck, the audience was more than awake. Stepping West ward, Miss Levertov's final read ing, left one with an exhilarating sense of the earthly. Using an ob jective correlative reminiscent of the Lost Generation, the poetess described life as living in the or chard and being hungry and pluck ing the fruit. Marking his tenth year as editor of Poetry magazine, Henry Rago read poems about post-war Europe, anniversaries, and comedy. In his Praise of Comedy, Rago observed that tragedy chooses us and com edy, the clear music, waits for a choice. Although his poetry does not reach the rich emotional heights of a Stephen Saunder or Richard Wilbur, Rago remains a poet of stature that is not totally mediocre. Mr. William Stafford, who re ceived the National Book award in 1963, was aware of his handicap appearing fifth on a program of five talented artists. To calm the audi ence's growing restlessness for that extra dry martini, Mr. Stafford prefaced each of his poems with fourth to the last, third to the last, etc. However, as the poet pro gressed, one's physical discomforts were forgotten with such striking sketches as an ambulance scream ing for a drop from Thinking for Barbie. And as the poet read At the Chairman's House Warming, many of the dark tweed set smiled knowingly. Exemplifies Virtues When Stafford won the National Book award for Traveling through the Dark, the citation read: Wil liam Stafford's poems are clean, direct and whole. They are both tough and gentle; their music knows the value of silence. His approach to the Poetry Day audi ence exemplified these same virtues. Poetry Night at Orchestra Hall had not only an impressive stage, but an equally impressive audience, as well, for Stephen Spencer and Saul Bellows were also present. Skyscraper Photo Wrinkle in Time author, Madeleine L'Engle, learns the Gelineau Psalms from Sister Mary Emily, B.V.M, of the speech and drama department. The author spoke here during Children's Book Week and explained how her family sings a grace before meals and a thanksgiving at bedtime. Newbery Prize Author Denounces 'Muffinism' by Judy Wardwell Just as eagles weave in their nests to restrict the fledglings' com fort, parents should prepare their children for today's harsh world, since little match girls die. With catchy enthusiasm, Made leine L'Engle, author of the New bery Prize-winning book A Wrinkle in Time, spoke informally about books and children during her Nov. 6 visit to Mundelein. Tillich Reveals Philosophical Background Stressing Transpersonal, Dynamic God (Continued from Page 1) the sense of having selfhood, and separation as falling away from sin is placed in the latter category and is distinguished from the technical non-being of his system. In focusing on God as being, Tillich gave further evidence of the broad background of philosophy assimilated in his syn thesis. First he recalled the Catholic Anselm: In our shock of non-being, our astonishment that concept must be made more meta phorical and consequently uses his well-known phrase ground of be ing. God is like man and yet is more than man, according to Tillich. Therefore, He is personal and not personal; rather He is transper sonal. Man talks to God as other than himself, as he would speak person-to-person; but Tillich con tends, in taking away the idea of person I make possible prayer because prayer is not person-to- person conversation but lifting the whole person to God. In such phrases as ground of being and God as trans- personal, Tillich admits using symbolic language. He consid ers a symbol as participation in a relationship, that which while pointing to something also makes the power of the thing present. Yet he feels even symbols are inadequate and uses them reservedly. Symbols are dan gerous to use but necessary, he said, dangerous because they are taken literally and dangerous because they may remove for people who can use such terms (and not everyone something is, we are aware of God not in the concrete sense, but in the sense of absolute being . . . that is, the inner nerve of the great onto- Iogical argument of Anselm. Next, he turned to Schelling and Hegel, revealing that his main in fluence in the area of being and non-being has been Schelling who had also influenced Hegel. Dr. Til lich credited Hegel with establish ing the profound observation of life going beyond itself by negat ing itself, and said .that he has ap plied this to God in his own Sys- tematic Tlveology to the life of God. Tillich considers God the ac tus puru8 not as pure iden tity but as real act, pure life and says he aims for a more dynamic interpretation of the Latin phrase. In the dynamic movement of moments, he rea sons, there is difference and distinction. Therefore (in ac cord with his understanding of the relation of movement and non-being) God must encom pass being and non-being. However, God is not a being in the Tillich synthesis. He favors the form esse ipsum as a basic episte- mological statement but feels tbe can) the forms of relationship to God. Finally, in direct reference to God, Tillich cited the Co-incidence of Opposites theory to support the seeming paradox of God as finite and infinite. Within the finite is the infinite and vice versa, Tillich asserts. The two are not identical but the qualitative otherness of the finite and infinite can be under stood in terms of a paradoxical within eachotherness. He defends this position against .the charge of pantheism by asserting that it maintains the infinite distance be tween the finite and infinite while eliminating dualism. In an encounter wth God, Tillich believes that faith precedes reason. Even so-called atheists can ap proach God because no genuine atheism exists. There is much non- theism but not atheism. There are many forms of relationship to God. All men, according to Tillich, come into contact with God in universal revelation, that is, a concrete revelatory experi ence which underlies all cul tures and religions. It is not a philosophic interpretation of the universe, Tillich said. If you live in Japan you participate in revelatory acts which underlie Japanese Bud dhism and have kept alive and given meaning to life for thou sands of years. It is univer sally present revelation, every revelation that can be found in revelatory events everywhere in the world. You can't make it, it comes like lightning. It is God whispering in the ear of the prophets. In his comment on Bishop John Robinson's Honest to God, Dr. Til lich implied that the Bishop has been an alarm clock waking Angli canism. Now a bishop of the established church has really gone into theological problems which the middle-way method had avoided, and a miracle happened ... he broke through. It is not techno logically original, Tillich holds, but the book has been like a thorn in the flesh of a deep sleeping theo logical church. I don't know when they'll go back to sleep, Tillich added, but if they do, at least they'll have had dreams. Explaining his position on mod ern theology, Tillich asserted that the machine is creating new forms which God could only create through man and his mind. How ever, something is lost, he said, in the ways in which nature, in cluding man, is .treated today under the predominance of technique, as something which is a mere object. I don't believe nature has things . . . something which is only con ditioned, nothing subjective in it self. One can have an eros rela tionship to something not a .thing, but not to a thing. Nature has lost its holiness, he concluded, we don't feel .the world as any longer grounded in the di vine ground. Acclaimed by Sister Mary Sharon, B.V.M., in her introduction as the most beautiful spiritual ex perience in reading a science fiction book, A Wrinkle in Time was de scribed by Miss L'Engle as an odd theology book with a message. She believes that books can leave an indelible impression on children, and that it is beneficial for children occasionally to read fairy tales that don't end happily ever after just for the 'Grimm-ness' of such tales. Miss L'Engle pointed out that there is a great difference be tween guidance and censorship in restricting children's read ing since guidance involves putting the children first. To demonstrate what putting chil dren first means, Miss L'Engle quoted a definition of agape by Canon Edward West. A profound concern for the wel fare of another without any de sire to control another, to be thanked by the other, or to en joy the profits. She remarked that this is not easy, but if we can follow it, it will mean guid ance without manipulation. Too many people are like muf fins today in the sense that they try to be alike, accused Miss L'En gle. Although she denied that she was a single voice crying in the desert against the danger of muf finism, she stressed that children must realize the value of the per son in order to avoid blind con formity, and that reading enables them to do this. She asked, Do we want unmarked children wrapped in cotton wool? As Mrs. Hugh Franklin in real life, author L'Engle is the mother of three children aged 11, 17 and 20, whom she calls the acid test for her books. With her husband who is an actor, she teaches speech and directs the annual Christmas pageant at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. She also has a creative writing class and directs school plays. Despite her busy schedule, Miss L'Engle will soon publish another book entitled The Arm of the Star fish which is a sequel to A Wrinkle in Time. Other books have been The Moon by Night and Meet the Austins.
title:
1964-11-25 (3)
publisher:
Women and Leadership Archives http://www.luc.edu/wla
creator:
Mundelein College
description:
Student newspaper for Mundelein College
subject:
Newspapers
subject:
Religious communities--Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
subject:
Students
subject:
Universities and colleges
subject:
Women's education
relation:
Mundelein College Records
type:
Text
language:
English
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Chicago, Illinois
coverage:
Mundelein College