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Poet moves from academia to verse |
A former professor of
philosophy and religion at George Fox University, Arthur Roberts
recently released his eighth book of poetry.
Moving from academics to verse is no great stretch for Roberts, 84.
“Philosophy hones the mind to try to express ideas in the minimum of
space and time. Poetry is also to the point,” he said. “Just as a
picture is worth a thousand words, a poem can explain something that
an essay would take pages to do.”
Titled
“Heavenly Fire and Other Poems,” the book is available through local
printing house Barclay Press. For ordering information, call
538-9775 or visit
www.barclaypress.com.
“It’s collecting poems around the theme of paying tribute,” he
said. “One of the reasons that I did so was the opportunity to
collect these tributes to people that I’ve known.”
“I’ve written these poems for years — many to my wife, Fern, which
are probably the most personal in the book, and about my kids and
grandkids. I’ve also gotten used to being called upon for special
occasions. People would have an anniversary and this was a way to
celebrate.”
Roberts’ muse has tended to be a public one: prior to joining the
faculty of George Fox, he worked as a pastor in the Friends
congregation and helped establish North Valley Friends Church in
Newberg. His first book, “The Sacred Ordinary,” was a collection of
sermons.
“It’s all part of ministry, I guess, but a pastor is more of a
counselor than an interpreter, which is how I see myself,” he said.
“My gift was acknowledged through teaching rather than the pulpit,
but the church really nurtured my gift for teaching. And my
Christian faith informs my poetry, though not always explicitly.”
After retiring from George Fox in 1988, Roberts and his wife took
up residence in Yachats, where he served for four years on the city
council and later as mayor — finding further inspiration in public
service.
“I wrote a poem for each council meeting, on themes of civic duty
and community,” he said. “I’d always been interested in political
life and I learned to appreciate a lot that we take for granted —
like where your tap water comes from.”
In his writing, Roberts said he prizes plain speech, citing Robert
Frost as a major influence.
“Elton Trueblood, a Quaker philosopher, wrote: ‘Great truths can be
expounded in ordinary speech,’ and in fact it doesn’t make their
impact less but heightens it,” he said. “People in any field lapse
into jargon, but the challenge is to communicate truth to others.
The constancy of the good, the true and the beautiful is something
that philosophy deals with also, but in poetry you look for ways to
express truth through sensory images, intuition, metaphor. Metaphor
is the soul of poetry.”
But Roberts does not spend all his days in pursuit of the perfect
line of verse. As professor emeritus, he remains involved in George
Fox, the school where he earned his undergraduate and graduate
degrees.
“In the last few years, I’ve served as a mentor to several Ph.D.
candidates, especially in the seminary program,” he said. “It’s my
continued service to the school.” |
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From
July 21, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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