The Poetry of Scott Cairns

I am currently working my way through Compass of Affection, a book of poetry by Scott Cairns. a professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Missouri, he is the author of a number of books of poetry and nonfiction. Annie Dillard says that she thinks that Cairns is "one of the best poets alive."

His poetry is powerful, I think, and his Christian faith is a backdrop against which his poetry shines. To give you a taste of his work, I will share a section from his rather lengthy poem, "Disciplinary Treatises." The following verses come from the section entitled, "4. The Communion of the Body."

Scattered, petulant, argumentative,
the diverse members generally find
little, nothing of their own, to offer

one another. Like us all, the saved
need saving mostly from themselves, and so
they make progress, if at all, by dying

to what they can, acquiescing to this
new pressure, new wind, new breath that would fill
them with something better than their own

good intentions. Or schemes of community.
Or their few articulate innovations
in dogma. What the Ghost expects of them

is a purer than customary will
to speak together, a mere willingness
to hear expressed in the fragmentary

figures of one another's speech the mute
and palpable identity they share,
scoured clear of impediment and glare,

the uncanny evidence that here
in the stillest air between them the One
we call the Ghost insinuates his care... (69,70)

Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected was published in 2006 by Paraclete Press.