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Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected
In this provocative collection, rich with expression and dense with meaning, Scott Cairns expresses an immediate, incarnate theology of God’s power and presence in the world. Spanning thirty years and including selections from four of his previous collections, Compass of Affection illuminates the poet’s longstanding engagement with language as revelation, and with poetry as way of discovery.
For those who already admire the poetry of Scott Cairns and for those who have yet to be introduced, this essential volume presents the best of his work – the holy made tangible, love made flesh, and theology performed rather than discussed.
Praise for Scott Cairns’ work
“Scott Cairns [is] perhaps the most important and promising religious poet of his generation.”—Prairie Schooner
“The voice of Cairns is conversational and coaxing—confiding in us secrets that seem to be our own.”
—Publishers Weekly
- GenresPoetryChristianity
161 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 20, 2011
And he told me he was enjoying the poet Scott Cairns, and I told him that I was enjoying the poet Anna Kamienska. Somehow we figured out they were both published by Paraclete Press. (Probably deduced from the Other Poetry from Paraclete Press in the back of the books, but I’m no detective.) So I told him he should check out Kamienska from the library, and he told me he’d loan me Cairns for me to peruse. And peruse I did. (Peruse of course in its correct usage.)
So, my neighbor loaned me the book. It looked like it had never been opened. The dust-jacket was flawless. Not even an oily thumb-print-smudge. Not a crease in a page, nor an egg salad stain ...but there was proof in the pages:
That, and all the conversations we’d had. Man, look at that thing! It's perfect! It's immaculate! I’d like to point out that any wrinkles you see in this paper come from me. And that circle-y looking thing at the top is from where my pen ran out of ink.
I think it’s important to keep notes on what I read, what I like. That’s part of the reason I have a goodreads account. I try to keep paper handy when I’m reading – especially if I’m reading poetry. Unfortunately, my notes generally end up on several snippets of paper and old library receipts – as my notes for Compass of Affection did:
I even left myself a note to remind me to get paper next time. (Or this time.) I hate not having paper when I read – especially poetry. There’s so much there. The damned poets have to cram so much meaning in every line.
I love religiously philosophical poetry – poetry that asks, “What is this God? And what does He demand of me?”
I was particularly drawn to Cairns’ “Adventures in New Testament Greek.”
Such as Mysterion: “What our habit has obtained for us appears/ a somewhat meager view of mystery.” Later in the poem: “More familiar, glib, and gnostic bullshit/ aside, the loss the body suffers when/ sacrament is pared into a tidy/ picture postcard of absent circumstance/” And later: “Mysterion is of a piece, enormous/ enough to span the reach of what we see and what we don’t.”
Such as Hairesis: “Hairesis finds its home in choice, in having chosen/ one likely story over its more well received counterpart,/ whose form - to the heretic - looks far// less compelling.”
Thoughts on prayer: “Of course the mind is more often a roar,/ within whose din one is hard pressed to hear/ so much as a single word clearly. Prayer?// Not likely. Unless you concede the blur/ of confused, compelled, competing desire/ of the mind brings forth the posture of prayer.”
I loved “Disciplinary Treatises” ”On the Embarrassment of the Last Things” I’ll write a short quote out as if it were prose. “Centuries of dire prophecy have taught us all to be, well, unconvinced. And there have been decades, entire scores of years when, to be frank, wholesale destruction didn’t sound so bad, considering. You remember, we were all disappointed. That the world never ended meant we had to get out of bed after all..."
There’s so much good in here. So much to ponder. It was fun having my neighbor’s list so I could see what he liked and compare it to what I liked. ...I don’t think I’ll give him my notes on the book however.
So, my neighbor loaned me the book. It looked like it had never been opened. The dust-jacket was flawless. Not even an oily thumb-print-smudge. Not a crease in a page, nor an egg salad stain ...but there was proof in the pages:
That, and all the conversations we’d had. Man, look at that thing! It's perfect! It's immaculate! I’d like to point out that any wrinkles you see in this paper come from me. And that circle-y looking thing at the top is from where my pen ran out of ink.
I think it’s important to keep notes on what I read, what I like. That’s part of the reason I have a goodreads account. I try to keep paper handy when I’m reading – especially if I’m reading poetry. Unfortunately, my notes generally end up on several snippets of paper and old library receipts – as my notes for Compass of Affection did:
I even left myself a note to remind me to get paper next time. (Or this time.) I hate not having paper when I read – especially poetry. There’s so much there. The damned poets have to cram so much meaning in every line.
I love religiously philosophical poetry – poetry that asks, “What is this God? And what does He demand of me?”
I was particularly drawn to Cairns’ “Adventures in New Testament Greek.”
Such as Mysterion: “What our habit has obtained for us appears/ a somewhat meager view of mystery.” Later in the poem: “More familiar, glib, and gnostic bullshit/ aside, the loss the body suffers when/ sacrament is pared into a tidy/ picture postcard of absent circumstance/” And later: “Mysterion is of a piece, enormous/ enough to span the reach of what we see and what we don’t.”
Such as Hairesis: “Hairesis finds its home in choice, in having chosen/ one likely story over its more well received counterpart,/ whose form - to the heretic - looks far// less compelling.”
Thoughts on prayer: “Of course the mind is more often a roar,/ within whose din one is hard pressed to hear/ so much as a single word clearly. Prayer?// Not likely. Unless you concede the blur/ of confused, compelled, competing desire/ of the mind brings forth the posture of prayer.”
I loved “Disciplinary Treatises” ”On the Embarrassment of the Last Things” I’ll write a short quote out as if it were prose. “Centuries of dire prophecy have taught us all to be, well, unconvinced. And there have been decades, entire scores of years when, to be frank, wholesale destruction didn’t sound so bad, considering. You remember, we were all disappointed. That the world never ended meant we had to get out of bed after all..."
There’s so much good in here. So much to ponder. It was fun having my neighbor’s list so I could see what he liked and compare it to what I liked. ...I don’t think I’ll give him my notes on the book however.
September 15, 2013
I often don't "get" modern poetry, and I'd like to think it's not from lack of trying. I miss the rhyme and the rhythm that makes poetry fun to read aloud, or I simply don't pick up on the deeper or more subtle rhythms of contemporary poetry. But I heard that Cairns was supposed to be the greatest Christian poet alive, and that he was Orthodox to boot, so I thought I'd give this a chance. This volume collects poems from several of his previous volumes with some new poetry as well. It wasn't until the poems from PHILOKALIA (2006) that I started to really enjoy it, to pick up on the symbolism and the meanings, and this likely had to do with the fact that his poems from that point get distinctly religious and distinctly Orthodox. So I had a leg up on deciphering the metaphors, understanding his language. And he does indeed speak the language very well. He has a gift for distilling the mythos and praxis of much of Orthodox spirituality into half a dozen spare lines. As for example when he discusses repentance, in "Adventures in New Testament Greek: Metanoia", here the last stanza:
as if the slow pilgrim
has been surprised to find
that sin is not so bad
as it is a waste of time.
"Possible Answers to Prayer" was another favorite and illustrates what Cairns is able to often do when discussing prayer: convict the shallowness of so much contemporary prayer while simultaneously giving a call to the sea depths of true prayer:
Your intermittent concern for the sick,
the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes
recognizable to me, if not to them.
There was much here I did not understand. There was the frustration I often run into when reading poetry of trying to extract some meaning from a handful of lovely metaphors. But there's obviously a great deal of wisdom as well.
This passage, from "Late Apocalypse" struck me as well
... I turned and saw before me
seven bright convenience stores, each laden with a hoard
of sugars and of oils, fuels devised by economics to obtain
the most satisfaction with the least actual good . . .
His poetry is not perfectly happy, because the world is broken (and what poet, ever, is perfectly happy?). And yet behind so many of the poems there is a hint of that golden glow in Orthodox icons (which he writes about as well), the light of the world to come, or of this world if we can train the eyes of the heart to see.
as if the slow pilgrim
has been surprised to find
that sin is not so bad
as it is a waste of time.
"Possible Answers to Prayer" was another favorite and illustrates what Cairns is able to often do when discussing prayer: convict the shallowness of so much contemporary prayer while simultaneously giving a call to the sea depths of true prayer:
Your intermittent concern for the sick,
the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes
recognizable to me, if not to them.
There was much here I did not understand. There was the frustration I often run into when reading poetry of trying to extract some meaning from a handful of lovely metaphors. But there's obviously a great deal of wisdom as well.
This passage, from "Late Apocalypse" struck me as well
... I turned and saw before me
seven bright convenience stores, each laden with a hoard
of sugars and of oils, fuels devised by economics to obtain
the most satisfaction with the least actual good . . .
His poetry is not perfectly happy, because the world is broken (and what poet, ever, is perfectly happy?). And yet behind so many of the poems there is a hint of that golden glow in Orthodox icons (which he writes about as well), the light of the world to come, or of this world if we can train the eyes of the heart to see.
December 3, 2023
I don't think a collection of poetry has ever made me stop and think so much as this one did. So many unique ways of looking at things - describing the past as a seductive woman that he can't resist spending an evening with, for example. What an incredible writer and thinker!
May 23, 2022
I encountered Scott Cairns years ago when he gave some summer lectures at Regent College, Vancouver. (How wide Regent's reach was back then!) He has become one of my favourite living poets, and this collection from almost twenty years ago remains startlingly resonant with the times, even when his poems describe...the times. Presciently, in fact, he anticipates the dire nonsense of our days, especially in his native USA but also beyond, as he sees our culture deeply and whole.
Many of his poems dwell on spiritual themes, Christian themes, themes especially of piety and prayer. He also muses upon sex and death, however, and the quotidian pleasures to be appreciated along life's way.
As with all especially good poets, one savours his work a page or so at a time (no poem stretches over more than two pages), and then thinks—and ponders, and perhaps prays. Time well spent with someone who pays attention to what matters and helps us to do so also.
Many of his poems dwell on spiritual themes, Christian themes, themes especially of piety and prayer. He also muses upon sex and death, however, and the quotidian pleasures to be appreciated along life's way.
As with all especially good poets, one savours his work a page or so at a time (no poem stretches over more than two pages), and then thinks—and ponders, and perhaps prays. Time well spent with someone who pays attention to what matters and helps us to do so also.
Read
August 12, 2012I love you, Scott Cairns. You are lovely and witty and sensitive and I wish you were my dad (my dad doesn't understand what the internet is, so he'll never read this, don't worry). Therefore I must decline to give you a star-rating...
p.s. for the record, I read this in preparation for an interview I had with Scott, so keep in mind, it was kind of like having to read something for school....and no, I wasn't getting paid for the interview, so that made it even worse. and I'm not good with poetry, most of the time, or anything remotely spiritual. But Scott Cairns the man gets five big motherfuckin' stars
p.s. for the record, I read this in preparation for an interview I had with Scott, so keep in mind, it was kind of like having to read something for school....and no, I wasn't getting paid for the interview, so that made it even worse. and I'm not good with poetry, most of the time, or anything remotely spiritual. But Scott Cairns the man gets five big motherfuckin' stars
June 19, 2016
The best way to describe this book is "weird." Some of it is just not that good, from a poetic perspective from what I can tell. I have a limited scope of poetic reading, but this was mixed up emotion, and bad writing. A few good lines or interesting raw emotion, and interesting observations. But those things a genius does not make. For all the ravings about Cairns, I found that my 10 year old could make similar observations, and maybe write better poetry. Wish I would have just checked out from the library!
November 2, 2012
On the road again, with the incarnate theology of delight and doubt at his disposal, the slowly plodding poet-pilgrim falls into adventures in iconography and "language as revelation" under the burning sky of affection and its compass of stillness: passion, performance, poetry, prayer, and presence...
January 29, 2011
I should probably stop reading Scott Cairns. I feel like I inherited his sense of humor and I'm genetically hard-wired to sound more like him over the phone as I grow up. Now if I ever make it as a poet I'll always wonder if it was nepotism. And I can't get this Darth Vader line out of my head.
May 13, 2011
Scott Cairns is a beautiful poet. His style is different, definitely, but his writing is clearly a heartfelt exploration of faith and God. A Greek Orthodox, he is very aware of symbolism and uses metaphor wonderfully.
January 2, 2017
Cairns' poems are stirring, challenging, surprising, rich with spiritual awareness, edgy, enlivening. He's one of a kind. He links the life of the spirit to the physicality of the body, the appetites, memory, and daily life in fresh ways that defy simple classification.
May 16, 2007
AWESOME. SCOTT CAIRNS' POETRY KEEPS MOVING BEYOND THE LIMITS OF BRILIANCE.
November 17, 2007
Cairns is a fantastic poet -- a very worthwhile collection.
May 27, 2009
Great book of poetry to read and discuss with friends!!
June 4, 2010
Great summary of Scott Cairns' poetry. Gives a great introduction to his work. Usually really deep; sometimes too self-indulgent. C'mon, he's a poet.
June 3, 2013
After a weak start, the poems improved!
November 15, 2008
Generative words. Must be participated with as read to be known and actively appreciated.
Read
December 19, 2017Took me some months to slowly work my way through this. I am still an inexperienced reader of poetry and this felt fairly demanding. Still, I felt it was worth the effort and I'm glad I spent the time with Cairns. There were moments of piercing beauty that more than made up for my confusion at other times.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews