Drew Jackson & Prophetic Poetry

In this episode of 20 Minute Takes, Nikki Toyama-Szeto interviews with poet and pastor Drew Jackson, author of God Speaks Through Wombs. Listen in as they talk about the necessity of prophetic art for the Church today, and how experience shapes scriptural imagination.

Learn more about Drew and his work here.
On Instagram @d.jacksonpoetics
On Twitter @djacksonpoetics

Transcript

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Nikki Toyama-Szeto (00:11):

Welcome to 20 Minute Takes. Today we’ll be speaking with poet and pastor Drew Jackson. He is the author of God Speaks Through Wombs, a book of poetry that is a reflection on the book of Luke. Drew Jackson, we are so honored to have you here and joining us in this conversation.

Drew Jackson (00:38):

So good to be here.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (00:39):

How do you describe your work to folks who might be new to you?

Drew Jackson (00:44):

I’m a pastor, I’m a poet. I often say I write my poetry at the intersection of justice, contemplation, and peacemaking. Where those three things come together is often where I find myself and my work coming out from.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (01:01):

Justice, contemplation, peacemaking—say more about that intersection.

Drew Jackson (01:07):

Those three things have been very informative for me in terms of  where I consider my vocation to be at and the things that get me up in the morning, the things that keep me up at night. When I think about poetry, you can approach poetry from so many different angles. In my personal writing, a lot of times I’ll explore my own inner landscape of things. So often it’s intersecting with those three things that I just said, because when we talk about some of the stuff that happens all around us in the world, when we talk about the racial injustice, when we talk about just the deep pain of our world, a lot of times I’m writing not just to comment on things out there, but how they’re meeting me internally. Poetry is how I’m processing, making sense of that. So it often hits that spot of, this poetry is crying out for something to change. This poetry is just processing the tears of it all, engaging with God in the midst of it, somehow searching for my own self in the midst of it, and saying, what does God’s new world look like? It’s imagination. That poetry is the place where I imagine with God. 

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (02:27):

Amazing. So it’s dreaming through the poetry as well as also entering into and processing. As you talk about it, I’m like, of course, poetry and justice, war poetry, that makes sense. It doesn’t seem like there are a lot of poets in these communities. It also seems a little rare to be a poet and a pastor. How does that work?

Drew Jackson (02:55):

I haven’t been writing poetry for a long time. I’ll put it this way, not in the form and structure that I’m writing in now. I got into poetry through hip hop and I’ve been a fan of hip hop for a long time. I used to write a lot of hip hop, which I think is where I started to get my love for how words come together and writing them down. One of the things that hip hop did for me and where it comes together with how I engage poetry, is that within a lot of hip hop, you find that it’s really prophetic imagination. It is this desire to see a new world. Because all I see around me are the things that need to change. Some of my favorite artists are always creating song after song about, imagine if this, if the world were like this and writing out of that place.

Drew Jackson (03:54):

I think my poetry sort of has been inspired by a lot of that. And I think that’s where my pastoral work sits as well. One of the things that the apostle Paul talks about, in terms of the space that the church occupies in the world, is he says that we stand at the hinge point between the old order that is passing away in the new age to come. The church stands at that hinge point. It’s not about resolving the tension, it’s about having one foot in both worlds. I think I write out of that.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (04:30):

I guess the question is not how does poetry and pastor go together. The question is, why aren’t there more poet pastors?

Drew Jackson (04:39):

That is a good question. I think it’s such a part of the biblical tradition. Poetry is such a part of it all throughout the scriptures. You see the writers of scripture are poets in so many different ways. The prophets are poets. I even say Jesus in his parables is dancing with poetry. There’s so much there. I think that is a good question. Why don’t we see that more often?

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (05:06):

It also kind of begs the broader question of, why don’t we see more artists in our church? You wrote a book, God Speaks Through Wombs, say more about that title.

Drew Jackson (05:23):

That title actually comes from the title poem of the book, which is the second poem in the book. It is interacting with the story of Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist. The thing with poetry is, when I’m writing I don’t often know where it’s gonna end up.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (05:50):

Is that right?

Drew Jackson (05:51):

I don’t.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (05:52):

A mystery journey off you go.

Drew Jackson (05:54):

That’s part of the fun for me of writing. Usually I’ll have the first line and it just unfolds from there.  We’ll see where it goes. Some poets are like, I know where it’s gonna end, but I don’t know how I’m gonna get there. But that poem and thinking about the context, what was going on at the time and really the whole project is centered on this idea of wanting to capture the voices of those who are oppressed and marginalized and saying, these are the voices that that the text is from. So with this particular poem, and the title that came out from it, I think it’s really just trying to capture that aspect of it. Elizabeth being the first person in the text, who we see embodying that. She has been named barren, she’s an outcast, she is from a marginalized people group- all these things that she carries in herself. And yet it is she who will be the one through whom the covenant is kept. God breaks into human history first and foremost, through her womb and through her story. I think that line is meant to capture that whole idea that I think Luke is trying to carry through the whole gospel.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (07:19):

Oh, that’s deep. So God Speaks Through Wombs is a book of poetry and it covers Luke.

Drew Jackson (07:28):

Yeah. First eight chapters.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (07:30):

Why poetry and why the book of Luke?

Drew Jackson (07:34):

When I jumped into this, I didn’t start off trying to write a book. I didn’t set out to do that. This was more for me a process, a project in my own curiosity and imagination. I started writing this book during quarantine. I needed to process some things for myself. I needed to process the things that were happening in our world. Particularly with everything around the murder of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, so much was happening. I think processing for me the reality that as a black man, when I tell my own story of having experienced racial injustice in this world, so often that is met with, “no that didn’t really happen” or someone trying to discredit my own story.

It’s a form of gaslighting, where you’re made to believe that you’re crazy. You’re making stuff up. It’s not really that bad. Part of how I even processed that in my own soul was through poetry, coming to the gospel of Luke, and knowing deep in my soul this text, the whole biblical text, but in particular with Luke. I often say to our church, “Rome didn’t write the scriptures.” Rome did not write the Bible. This text was not written from the center of power, but from those who are on the edges and on the margins. When Luke says in those first four verses of the gospel he’s talking to Theopolis. He says, I’m writing these things down so that you can have confidence in what you’re hearing.

Drew Jackson (09:22):

In the first poem, I end by saying, have confidence in what you hear from them. These stories that are coming from the mouth of those who have been disempowered and marginalized- have confidence in what you hear from them. I was coming to the text to hear, you’re not crazy. You’re not alone on this journey.  I just started writing out of that. That morphed into this larger thing where I just kind of kept journeying through the whole gospel of Luke and writing. One of the things I say in the introduction is that I write out of my interest in theology and the biblical narrative, but I’m writing unapologetically as a black man. What I mean when I say that is, too often I’ve been told that I need to take off that lens when I read and interpret the text. And I’m just like, there is no plain reading of the text. We all have lenses that we bring to the text; that it’s not about trying to remove those lenses. It’s about being aware of them, acknowledging them. When we can do that, it actually adds to our collective interpretation of what’s happening here and how we make sense of things.  I’m gonna bring all of that too, and give myself the freedom to imagine where this goes, to have a holy imagination with the scriptures, to have fun with it, and to see where it will lead me. So that’s how I approached it and just started writing out of that.

I wanted to do that with Luke’s gospel. The one other thing I’ll say about that is the Psalms really inspired me with this because there’s a tradition within Jewish thought that talks about how the five books of the Psalms are in conversation with the themes of the five books of Torah. Each book is not a direct commentary on its corresponding book of Torah, but it’s interacting with the themes. So I was sitting in book two of the Psalms and thinking about how the themes of Exodus illuminate the poetry of book two. It just really changes how you hear the Psalms. When I’m reading in Psalm 42, which starts book two – “as a deer pants for flowing streams, my soul thirst for you for God, for the living God.” In the background of that, I hear the collective voice of the Hebrew people crying out for liberation. That changes how I interact with that Psalm. I asked myself the question, what would it sound like if poetry, or if the gospels were to give rise to poetry in our day, what would come out of that? I was curious to see where it would go.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (12:14):

I see. So in the same way that like book two of the Psalms had a conversation with Exodus, your book of poetry in some ways is having a conversation with the book of Luke. That’s profound. You were saying that you with self-awareness bring in your experiences as a black man. What has that opened up? As you have looked at the book of Luke, was there something that you sort of felt like, oh, I see this differently?

Drew Jackson (12:48):

The communal nature of the text and what’s happening, or just the people as they’re interacting with this narrative and this story. My experience of black family, black joy, and being around the table or being in the church – all of these different things informed how I read this text. The pain and the sorrow of knowing the experience of injustice and oppression. Particularly, I remember when I was first reading through Luke chapter three. John the Baptist, his ministry, I remember are interacting with Jesus, hearing the news of John’s arrest. One verse and you get it. The narrative keeps moving, but I couldn’t keep moving. 

I stayed there. I had to stay there. Jesus was a human being and John is his family. It’s his cousin. And so how does he receive the news that his cousin is now incarcerated? But also against the backdrop in history of how the empire has treated his people and that this isn’t anything new. Entering into that moment and just entering into the emotions and the pain and the tears that Jesus likely experienced in that space and saying, I know what that’s like, I know what that feels like. Allowing myself to go there, honestly, just be ministered to by Jesus in that space. But to bring my full self to that, where I think that had I not done that I would’ve just kept moving. This is just part of the plot. This is just part of the narrative, but just allowing my full self to come to that, come to the text in that way and allow God to meet me there.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (14:53):

It’s an extraordinarily vulnerable thing to do, but Drew, thank you. I mean, it’s such a gift that you both share your own experience of the text, as well as your art. It helps all of us process, learn more about God, and journey on longer. We would love to have you read some of your work. Would you mind reading one of your poems for us?

Drew Jackson (15:18):

Absolutely. I can read a poem that came out of the story where Jesus raises a widow’s son who has passed away in Luke chapter seven. I’m just sort of entering into that space, what she may have been experiencing in that with the news of her son. It sparked for me thinking about all of the mothers who have lost sons and are standing and weeping over that reality. This poem is called Mothers Like Us.

These tears stream for all mothers

Everywhere who know this pain, 

Mamie (SP?), Leslie, Samaria, Sabrina, Trusa (SP?), Valerie, both of them 

Hougha (sp?), Kaudiatu (SP?), Constance, Iris, Larcenia, 

 weeping from the heavens as her boy called for her and the tens of thousands of others who have known the feeling of being wordless. 

And sonless 

These tiny tunnels behind my eyes, won’t stop their flooding like the broken faucet of my bathroom sink. There is no turning this off. 

My hands are motionless down at my side. Yet somehow I feel a finger running gently underneath my right eye, collecting my liquid grief. 

While these words reach me, Don’t cry. 

The words heaven speaks to the mothers of earth 

mothers like us.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (17:19):

Would you also be willing to read the title poem? And can you tell us a bit about that?

Drew Jackson (17:23):

Absolutely. The title poem, God Speaks Through Wombs. This is from Luke one, looking at verses five through 25, the interaction with Elizabeth hearing the news that she’s going to be giving birth to John. And Zachariah not believing all of that. 

In the days of empires and puppet regimes. God speaks

Through wombs rested and discarded because they were unviable. This is what they do. 

The Romes, the Babylons, the USAs, the men 

toss to the side as detritus, what they’ve deemed unfit to be utilized. 

But God speaks through wombs, 

birthing, prophetic utterances, the object of public scorn, given the power to name the happenings of the Lord. 

Elizabeth is her name, say her name.

It is she who will be the one through whom the covenant is kept. 

She like a priestess speaks her word while the leading male voices are shut 

enough of this unbelieving religion that masquerades as faith,

divine favor is placed on what we have disgraced.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (19:00):

It’s powerful. Your poetry is so powerful. Thank you.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (19:04):

Drew Jackson—poet, pastor, author of God Speaks Through Wombs. Thank you so much for joining us in this conversation.

Drew Jackson (19:12):

Thank you so much.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (19:21):

20 Minute Takes is a production of Christians for Social Action. Our music was created by Andre Henry and our show is produced by David de Leon. I’m your host, Nikki Toyama-Szeto. If you want to find out more about our work, visit the website at christiansforsocialaction.org