Recently, I’ve taken to writing poetry in church–partially to keep me awake, but also to explore elements of worship, such as this one I wrote a few weeks ago:<\/p>\n
Bread and water,
\ntypes of Christ,
\nbond us in the covenant
\nand make us His people;
\nbearing His name,
\njoined in discipleship,
\nremembering the Savior
\nby His flesh and blood.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nMy preferred form is the chiamus<\/a>, a type of parallel structure that follows an inverted ABCCBA pattern.\u00a0 For example, with the poem above:<\/p>\n
> Bread <\/em>and water,<\/em>
\n<\/strong>>> types of Christ<\/em>,
\n<\/strong>>>> bond us in the covenant
\n<\/strong><\/em>>>>> and make us His people;
\n<\/em>>>>> bearing His name,
\n<\/em> >>> joined in discipleship,<\/em>
\n<\/strong>>> remembering the Savior<\/em>
\n<\/strong>> by His flesh <\/em>and blood.<\/em><\/p>\nPerhaps not the best example, but yeah, that’s the basic idea.\u00a0 The parallel elements don’t necessarily have to rhyme, but they do have to share a common theme or idea, and the idea in the center is supposed to be the most important.<\/p>\n
The ancient Hebrews used chiasmus quite a lot, and you can find many examples of it in the Bible and the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 According to Avraham Gileadi, the entire book of Isaiah follows a chaistic structure.\u00a0 My favorite example is probably Alma 36<\/a>, where the whole chapter is one enormous, beautifully complex chiasmus.<\/p>\n
Anyhow, I wrote one today that I thought was pretty good.\u00a0 It’s not particularly religious, but it does have a lot of personal significance.<\/p>\n
Enjoy!<\/p>\n
Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n
Few things last forever;
\nmost friendships come and go.
\nOthers last enough to share
\na closeness that can grow.
\nSelf to self,
\nunveil the masks,
\nreveal your heart, and when
\nour souls connect,
\nthis close
\nand lasting
\nfriendship
\nnever ends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recently, I’ve taken to writing poetry in church–partially to keep me awake, but also to explore elements of worship, such as this one I wrote a few weeks ago: Bread and water, types of Christ, bond us in the covenant and make us His people; bearing His name, joined in discipleship, remembering the Savior by… Continue reading Some chiastic poetry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[497,122,496,37],"class_list":["post-3779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-chiasmus","tag-friends","tag-poetry","tag-spirituality","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-YX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3779"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3790,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions\/3790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}