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 the assigned texts, which began with selected Psalms anyway, and early chapters of Genesis and the last of Job. Still waiting books, the peaks of the messianic sticking up like mountains from the textually landscaped valleys and plateaus 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 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 where the Psalms were considered  as poems with poetic research. This was 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,  the very first of more than twenty pieces that ensued in the fine elimae, and also, A Shakespeare Code in Psalm 46 (19-25), executed from sources at the SMU rare book room, and finally the Season of Troy's War, which has not yet appeared. 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 (tr. 2018) 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 the whole ms., but wanted $1500 subvention. It was then put under the tutelage of Maimonides and meditated. A few copies remain of the original  in softcover proof at $20.

The effort to retell the Psalms of David  of 1985, reflecting what Isaiah said is written on the palms, engraved on His hands, and what is broadcast of knowledge of the One and his incarnation in time wrestles subsequently with the Neptune giants, so called, and confronts astrophysics and genetic cybernetic biology, so self-satisfied it has declared immortality upon itself and annihilation upon all of us. Come see us here