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Orlando Ricardo Menes — Grace
00:15:20
Some religions and some people have very specific ideas about “grace”, and that includes poet Orlando Ricardo Menes. In the carefully constructed “Grace”, he manages to both demystify and remystify what grace is, leaving us with the possibility that at any moment or no moment it could pour down and quench us all. Intrigued? Confused? Give this episode a listen. We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.
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My name is Padre Go Toma. And there's a variety of phrases that rub me up the wrong way. Liminality is one of them. And the term grace that you hear in some religion. And I don't like it when I get an email that starts off with just a gentle reminder, because I don't believe the gentle. And one of the things, as I've looked at these things, that can get under my skin a bit, one of the things that's occurred to me is, is that my dislike of them should actually be a motivation to think, how can I pay attention to this? Because something's grabbing my attention and it's grabbing it through my slight irritation. And this, I think, can be a motivation into reconsidering what a term might mean, not by me changing the way other people use it, but by me changing the way I read it. Grace, by Orlando Ricardo Menes. We cannot buy it in bulk at Trader Joe's, swap it for gold, or hoard shares of Grace Incorporated to hedge against bad luck. We acquire it without contract, promissory notes or IOUs, neither codicils nor fine print. We gather grace safe from litigation or severance. And though we might breach the strictures of creed, it cannot be forfeited or suspended. Rather, grace is asymmetric, parabolic, skewed to love, imminent and absolute, but also unpredictable, as quantum particles, both here and and there, both full and empty, so it might arrive inopportunely and thus slip under hope, upsetting the earnest prayer, teasing our faith like some rain bands copious cumuli that appear astray unbidden in stagnant skies to drench at last the drought scourged earth. This poem by Orlando Ricardo Menes is a kind of a praise poem to Grace. It's an attempt to say that, you know, grace can't be purchased or bargained for, and that it doesn't exist in any one way of thinking or believing, and that it's both unpredictable and also it can be a bomb. There's an anarchy, really, to the way that he describes grace. And he begins with the language of commerce. We cannot buy it in bulk at Trader Joe's. And then he messes around with an idea of hoarding shares in Grace Incorporated. We acquire it without contract, he says, or promissory notes, and talks about IOUs and litigation. So he's gone on to questions about legality here, and he says that despite what some people say, grace is available inside and outside of religious imagination. Though we might breach the strict of creed, it cannot be Forfeited or suspended. So commerce, law and religion. All of these systems of governance, I think, Are what cannot govern what he's talking about. And he's pushing us to think of something that will refuse to work. Within the context of any form of human control. Be it a spiritual or a commercial or a legal kind of a control. He spent so much time saying about what can't be done with grace. He doesn't yet, at the beginning, say what it is. And that's one of the things that the poem doesn't quite do. The poem leads us to describing the phenomenon. The experience of something. He builds up expectation. By telling us, in the first sense. The apophatic way of saying. Here's what something isn't. Here's what something isn't. Here's what you can't do. Here's what you can't do. So our expectation is built up. And then we hear about something that comes astray and unbidden. A deeply careful thought about how to build expectation. And also how to refuse the idea that just because he's built expectation. That he has to narrow us into a definition. It's seen in the choice of language as well. This is a poem that is about something. That is, for many, a real consolation. Grace. And it is a poem that makes deep demands on the tongue. I've practiced so often how to read this poem. We acquire it without contract. Permissory notes or iou. Use neither CODEL nor fine print. That asks for work in the tongue, work in the mouth. There aren't liquid sounds that slide over the tongue and lips in this poem. This is a poem that asks for demand. When he's telling us about all the kind of things that something indescribable isn't. This particular poem is from a book of Orlando Ricardo Menes. Is called the Gospel of Wildflowers and Weeds. And strangely, this is only my opinion. But it seems to me that the most important word in the title of that book is the. And that's put in as an ampersand on the COVID of the book. That symbol that people use instead of spelling out A and E. Orlando Ricardo Menes has said that he's really interested in amalgamation. Merging or mixing or consolidating things. And you see that throughout the poem. In the refusal to amalgamate some things. And then the demonstration of amalgamation and mixing of others. So the refusal seen in saying that grace can't be mixed with swapping or capital. Or contracts or IOUs or litigation. But what he does do is he creates a mixing between grace and love. It's skewed to love and also between the imminent and absolute, and also between the desired for and the unpredictable. And the way that something can be in a few places at once. He turns to physics and he speaks about as quantum particles, both here and there, both full and empty. He puts those two words and in italics. And it really emphasizes the way that you're supposed to look at what's happening in the mechanics of the poem. And this is for all the lullaby like attention. This is a mechanical poem that is cranking and cranking and cranking the understanding towards reaching beyond itself. I love what he's doing in this. And what's grace for? He says that it's clear that all the strangenesses of grace are for the following things to arrive inopportunely, to slip under hope, upsetting the earnest prayer. He says that grace is like some clouds that arrive unexpectedly and that they're uncalled for in a place where they shouldn't have been, perhaps, and they provide what is deeply needed. Drench at last the drought scourged earth. The metaphor here is of a dry land in need of rain. And in its need it is turned to sympathetically by the rain. The question isn't whether the dry land does or doesn't deserve the rain, or whether it's high crop yielding land or valuable in somebody else's eyes. It's simply the drought scourged earth. Perhaps that's a patch of land, a piece of farm, a field. Or perhaps it's the entire planet or the entire human experience that if we are thirsty, well then we are looking for the benevolence, the consolation, the gift of rain. Grace is a term that I've fairly often had problems with because I suppose I've allowed myself and my imagination to be influenced by the way that it's been defined in a narrow religious imagination, because I've heard it much more than once being defined as saying something like, you know, you're utterly terrible, a piece of crap, but snow like grace will cover you anyway, even though you're depraved. It's a slight exaggeration, but it's not actually that much of an exaggeration. And I thought, what a terrible way to think about human people in the midst of all our capacities and incapacities. And so initially when I saw this title of the poem, I found myself resisting it and thinking, oh, not even sure I'll give this poem much time. But I kept on coming back to it because I knew I had to. Because I knew I put something between me and it that wasn't fair to the poem. And what I found so interesting is that this is a poem, too, that pushes through religion, especially in the very deft turns toward the end when he says that grace arrives full and empty and upsetting the earnest prayer teasing our faith. So the earnest prayer might think that you'll get something if you say the right thing in the right way, with the right belief, the right this, the right that. And he is saying that the unpredictability of grace goes against any system of thinking that you might have in human contact or in the religious imagination. And that's upsetting, understandably. So I think of a time when I might want a friend of mine to have some grace in their life because they're going through some difficulty. I tend to think, yeah, but my friend deserves it. And I think that's probably true for all of us. We all want good things for the people we love, who we think deserve it. And there's an anarchy then, in the kind of grace that Orlando Ricardo Menes is describing, that it doesn't just come at the time at which you'd most want it, it comes at the time at which it comes. There's a mystery to that, something unbidden that speaks to the drought in us. Even amidst my own misgivings about deserving, I want to find myself attuned to the question about how this is operating and to be attuned to it when it comes. When. When the drought scourged earth around me or in me somehow is given some balm, some consolation, some kindness that doesn't explain anything and also isn't explainable. Skewed to love, he said earlier on. And I think that's a fine way to think about it. Sam. Grace by Orlando Ricardo Menes. We cannot buy it in bulk at Trader Joe's, swap it for gold, or hoard shares of Grace, Inc. To hedge against bad luck. We acquire it without contract, promissory notes or IOUs, neither codicils nor fine print. We gather grace safe from litigation or severance. And though we might breach the strictures of creed, it cannot be forfeited or suspended. Rather, grace is asymmetric, parabolic, skewed to love, immanent and absolute, but also unpredictable, as quantum particles both here and and there, both full and empty. So it might arrive inopportunely and thus slip under hope, upsetting the earnest prayer teasing our faith like some rain bands, copious cumuli that appear astray unbidden in stagnant skies to drench at last the drought scourged earth. Grace by Orlando Ricardo Menes originally appears in the Gospel of Wildflowers and weeds, published in 2022 by University of New Mexico Press. Thanks to them for permission to use this poem and to Frederick Courtright of the Permissions company. Poetry Unbound is Andrea Prevot, Carla Zanoni, Daryl Chen, Sparrow Murray, Chris Heagle, Bill Sigmund and me, Padre Gautuma. Our music is composed and provided by Gautam Srikishan and Blue Dot Sessions. These episodes episodes were made in New York City on unceded Lenape land. Special thanks to Will Salwin, Nave Yan and Adam Morell at Digital Island Studios in Manhattan. Thanks as well to Frederick Courtright of the Permissions company. Poetry Unbound is an independent non profit production of the On Being project founded and led by Christa Tippett. This season of Poetry Unbound is made possible by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Our other funding partners include the Liana foundation, the Bidal foundation, and Engaging the Census Foundation. Poetry Unbound would be nothing without the listening community. Thanks to all who listen, who read and give through our weekly Poetry Unbound substack or directly to On Being. For links to the substack and to find out more about Poetry Unbound books and events, visit poetryunbound.org.