A Poetical Reading of the Psalms of David (1985)

This book forced itself on me when I was trying to teach a literature class at Bishop College, Dallas. The texts came late that semester so students brought Bibles in place of that assigned, which began with selected Psalms anyway, and early chapters of Genesis and the last of Job. Still waiting books, the peaks of the messianic that stuck up like mountains from the textually landscaped valleys and plateaus below were explored: 2, 8, 16, 23, 24, 40, 41, etc.,  Here is one beginning class of 22 January 1985 concerning Psalm 8. This topography had an appeal anyway from before the birth of our daughter who was carried into the sun of the alleys of Austin in her first year, up and down singing Psalm 8. The vibrations induced sleep.  Psalm 8 had been an ally in early semesters at Bishop College in a first lit class composed of juniors and seniors. They had put off taking it and expected to emerge unscathed, but thought a new teacher might complicate their lives. After explaining the psalms were sung antiphonally I chanted Psalm 8  in full voice. It may be Psalm 23 followed. It sounded like a voice from a minaret at dawn.

Eventually learning to teach, to prepare materials to base a class on, it was no stretch to continue writing at home at three AM after the books arrived. This resulted in a manuscript in about three months called  A Poetical Reading of the Psalms of David, considered  as poems with poetic research, finished the day before our first son Aeyrie was born, made available then in proof. Those literature classes also produced Between the Bath and the Body's End: Socrates Breaks the Decorum of Death, investigations of a "Shakespearean" Psalm 46 and the Season of Troy's War. Some of  Poetical Reading circulated.  Mystical Quarterly rejected a take, but one of its referees, Elémire Zolla, translated it into Italian as Pianta celeste o stella terrestre: il retroterra biblico nel rapporto tra piante e stelle and published in his Rome journal, Conosceza religiosa (1983). Psalm 1 occurred as "New Species"  in Epiphany (Fall, 1987). A second effort with Psalms 8 and 16 at MQ was accepted, but that editor wrote a year and a half later to say  the magazine would fold. Publisher Peter Lang offered to do it whole, but wanted $1500 subvention. It was then put under the tutelage of Maimonides and meditative reproduction begun. A few copies remained of the original  in softcover proof at $20.

More Extraordinary Than Ever Can Be Said.  Introduction

The Tree Root Branch Bud Stalk of Being. Psalm 1
Trick or Treat in Space. Psalm 2
Absalom's Beauty. Psalm 3
                  Shekhinah. Psalm 4
  Addendum, Acknowledgments