Transcript

I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.

As someone who is an atheist and was, for the most part, raised as a non-believer, one of my favorite things is when poets find their own individual gods to write for, to worship, or praise, or pray to. The god of small things, the god of broken hearts, the god of poetry submission acceptances, the god of wine. The pantheon of poetry gods is real. The list is vibrant and gets added to every day.

I think it’s a beautiful thing, to find what god you want to talk to in a poem and make that god your reader, your own listener. I’ve done that many times. I think about how many times a forest has become my church, my sacred space, or where I went to talk to my dead. I’d walk in the tree farm and know it was where I could reach them, across whatever millions of planes there are between the living and the dead, and just talk, a direct connection, like a root system taking up water.

I’ve done this with my ancestors too. Called on a specific person that might help me through a particular moment in my life. Sometimes you need the kind of supportive ancestor who is going to say, “good job, you can do this, you are doing this, you’ve got this, look how far you’ve come and what you’ve been through!” And sometimes you need the ancestor that gives you a bit of a hard time, the one that says, “Really, you think this is a hardship, you think this is the time to lie down and give up? Do you know what I went through to be here, to get here? Don’t you think I was tired, do you think I quit? Let me talk to you about suffering.” As harsh as that voice sounds, sometimes I actually need it. Sometimes I need to be reminded that I am the product of many people’s stories and hardships and successes. And in that way, I can find the strength to go on.

Today’s poem is about talking to that god that reminds you not just of what you and your community have been through, but also about how to summon the strength to keep going.

Batter My Heart, Transgender’d God
by Meg Day

Batter my heart, transgender’d god, for yours
is the only ear that hears: place fear in my heart
where faith has grown my senses dull & reassures
my blood that it will never spill. Show every part
to every stranger’s anger, surprise them with my drawers
full up of maps that lead to vacancies & chart
the distance from my pride, my core. Terror, do not depart
but nest in the hollows of my loins & keep me on all fours.
My knees, bring me to them; force my head to bow again.
Replay the murders of my kin until my mind’s made new;
let Adam’s bite obstruct my breath ‘til I respire men
& press his rib against my throat until my lips turn blue.
You, O duo, O twin, whose likeness is kind: unwind my confidence
& noose it round your fist so I might know you in vivid impermanence.

"Batter My Heart, Transgender'd God" by Meg Day. Used by permission of the poet.