Lyrics for the Bride of God

Lyrics For The Bride Of God

Nathaniel Tarn's book-length poem, "Lyrics for the Bride of God" (1975) is an old book for me. The title fascinated me when I saw the book remaindered at a a long-gone bookstore in the late 1970s. Tarn's poem has stayed prominently on my shelves since then. I struggled with the poem several times over the years and found it opaque but recently decided to try it again. The poem remains challenging but evocative. I was pleased to learn that the book remains in print. Tarn's long poem also appears in an anthology of his poetry published in 2000. Selected Poems: 1950-2000 (Wesleyan Poetry)

Born in Paris to British-Lithuanian and French-Rumanian parents, Nathaniel Tarn (b. 1928) was educated in France, Belgium and England. He has enjoyed a wide and varied career. As a young man, Tarn received a PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago and made a reputation as an anthropologist before turning to poetry. Tarn moved to the United States permanently in 1970. Tarn was a founder of Cape Goliard publishing house and he has become a translator of Pablo Neruda among other poets. He is also a prolific poet.

"Lyrics for the Bride of God" may still be Tarn's best-known work. The title of the poem has its roots in Jewish mysticism. The Bride of God in the Kaballah is known as the Shekinah which represents the feminine side of God. Tarn's book is a meditation on the Shekinah as a presence in his life. Tarn writes early in his poem:

"They say we don't know about a female aspect of God
it goes against the grain and has little to do with the tradition
our fathers rammed down our throats with castor oil
but I was very much in love with her and could have eaten her s
had she ever asked, but she never did in that time."

The passage shows much of the intent of the book. Tarn is speaking of a spiritual figure of feminine character. She is not exclusively Jewish as the book offers a dazzlingly learned display of female figures from a wide variety of traditions, including Greek, and the middle-American Indians Tarn studied as an anthropologist. Besides her spirituality, Tarn's feminine figure is highly sexual, vulgar and earthy. She appears in the flesh and blood women Tarn knows and with whom he becomes involved. Frequently in the book, it is deliberately difficult to tell whether Tarn is writing in the realm of the mythological or in the realm of actuality. The book is an attempt to combine the two. I think much of the book involves a deeply personal attempt by the author to spiritualize or mythologize sexuality.

The book is autobiographical in form. It is written in the voice of a man of 44 who has recently moved to the United States. The tone of the work is indicated by the opening "Preface in the Form of an Arrival" where Tarn announces:

"The poems you are about to hear belong to the time of wandering......
I no longer wander.
Something has happened, I am not alone.
The arrival may be best spoken of as a she. Perhaps, I may call her
the Friend.
She is what I thought of as my own presence. The heart's is her weight.
If I am silent in her company, my solitude is still as bird noise.
There is no possible loneliness in her company."

The poet offers to lend his vision to the reader for a while, only to borrow her back with the experience is over.

The tone of the book is mixed ranging from the ecstatic to the mundane. The book is highly allusive with a great deal of embedded quotation. In the final long section of the book, called "La Traviata", Tarn quotes paragraphs from Kate Millet's work of the time, "The Prostitution Papers." The Prostitution Papers: A Quartet for Female Voice Free verse is used but stanzas and metrical lengths vary substantially throughout. There are quotations in a variety of languages, many of which will be unfamiliar to most readers and none of which are translated.

Besides the Prelude, mentioned above, the poem is in five lengthy sections with subparts followed by a short conclusion hearkening back to the Prelude. Tarn appends a brief bibliography of texts which influenced him at the end of the work. The subparts describe the impact of the Shekinah -- womanhood on Tarn in various contexts. It begins with a section called "The Kitchen" where Tarn describes his lover -- Shekinah as "kumari" -- a young Tibetan goddess figure. the second section is called the "Artemision" after the temple of Artemis in Greek mythology and is heavily mythological. The third section, "The Invisible Bride" combines sexual and spiritual symbolism. Symbolism with birds plays an important role. The fourth section "America" describes the poet's wanderings through his adopted land, culminating in a section set in Gloucester, Massachusetts (the setting of a long poem by Charles Olson) after foreign travel. The final section of the book "La Traviata" is a meditation on feminism, prostitution and varying forms of female sexuality with quotations from 19th Century French writers and from Kate Millet, among others.

Throughout, mythology and sexuality are used to bring meaning and purpose to the poet's life, but the text is also seasoned with irony and wit. Here is how the poem concludes.

"Blessed art thou, of radiant presences the center
that maketh the diamond to shine forth from the coal
and the moment to leap forth from the aeon!

Everything is redeemed said one in my sleep, whose name and title
I did not catch
upon the introduction."

This poem still appears to me better in its conception than in its execution. Portions of it remain impenetrable but there are inspiring and beautiful passages in this work. The book has remained on my shelves for a reason. I was glad to read it again and to try to share my thoughts about it here.

Robin Friedman