Backward Mutters Podcast

Good morning, listeners. Today’s poem is a poem for Easter. It was originally written in response to a poetry prompt in which we were to write a “pet poem.” At the time I was preaching a series from the book of Job and was thinking a lot about the monsters in that book: Rehab, Behemoth, and Leviathan. I was really taken by the image of Leviathan in Job chapter 41. Up to that point in the book of J...

Well, friends, spring arrived in my neck of North Carolina while my wife and I were in Lancaster, PA at this year’s Square Halo Conference. Square Halo’s a wonderful two-day conference for those thinking about how art and creativity intersect. It is a community big on collaboration, and I am grateful for how they’ve worked to collaborate with other artists and groups of artists across the US and t...

I learned several years ago from a member of my congregation that April 29th was Poem In Your Pocket Day. Though it’s a part of National Poetry Month, I’ve just discovered that it isn’t a fixed day during the Month, but rather it can move. Maybe it’s something like a moveable feast in the church calendar. Or maybe it’s something like the difference in Easter Sunday between the Julian and Gregorian...

Today’s poem is a sonnet which is part character poem and part dialogue. It is based after the character Jill Pole  who is found in  C.S. Lewis’, The Silver Chair , which is fourth in the The Chronicles of Narnia series. The sonnet’s initial inspiration comes from the following line from the beginning of that book, which reads, “It was a dull Autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym. She...

Good morning! Today is February 26, 2025 and today’s poem is inspired by the ending of the book of Job. I began writing poems inspired by the book of Job in the fall of 2020 when I preached a series through the book — a book I had avoided because I couldn’t imagine how one could preach forty chapters of poetic dialogue. Thankfully, there are smarter people than me, and I was helped by the books an...

When I studied to be a pastor, one of my practical theology professors was Dr. Steve Brown. Steve is a native North Carolinian and went to college down the road from where I pastor now. From a North Carolina Methodist college to a Methodist seminary in Boston, Steve trained for and entered the pastorate. And then he became a Christian — not the usual progression for a minister. Eventually, Steve m...

During the pandemic, poet, priest, and academic Dr. Malcolm Guite began his YouTube channel, Spells in the Library . These 10 minute videos were a way he could continue to offer “office hours” so to speak. As chaplain of Cambridge University’s Girton College, Dr. Guite kept office hours when students would stop for a visit. His Spells in the Library were a way Dr. Guite labored to keep something o...

Today’s poem is inspired by a song found in a collection of songs which were sung by pilgrims as they traveled from their homes to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. The collector and organizer of the book of the psalms titles each of these fifteen psalms “songs of ascent” because in traveling to Jerusalem, you are ascending not only the Judean highlands, but you are climbing Mount Zion. This is...

Today’s poem was written in response to a charcoal drawing that artist Hannah Pabón created as a part of a community art project curated by the Almond Tree Artist Collective ’s exhibit “ Another Way of Seeing .” Hannah’s painting, “ He Wept ” is a tableau drawn from the many pictures that filled the media following the invasion of the Ukraine in February of 2022. Her response to the news of the in...

This week’s poem is a reworking of an Appalachian folktale which I first heard as a youth from my pastor, a Methodist minister named Joe Ervin. Preacher Joe introduced me and dozens of others to Richard Chase’s collection of mountain tales titled, Grandfather Tales , as he read them to us as campers siting around a campfire during summer trips to a US Forest Campground called Carolina Hemlock on N...

Today’s poem is inspired by an Appalachian mountain story collected by Richard Chase, and included in his book of folktales, titled The Grandfather Tales . Before the advent of the television and the internet, story telling was both an art and the preferred entertainment when sitting with family or neighbors after dinner or around the fireplace in the evening. This poem is a re-telling of one of C...

Today’s poem is a poem inspired by 1 Corinthians 13. It was written during a season when after attempts to love and minister to others, the love was not enough to change the course of the circumstances that were playing out. The poem’s title and theme was borne out of the sadness that love does not leverage an advantage over others or circumstances. It isn’t that love isn’t strong, but it has no c...

A poem for the smallest and yet largest of beasts. My friend Michael Kuehn and his wife Hazel Kuehn will be presenting their multimedia presentation, "Bird Songs" on Monday, September 23 at the Walkertown Public Library at 6:00pm. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit backwardmutters.substack.com

I don’t know if it’s my vocation as a pastor or because I’m older or if things have changed, but the brokenness of the world and the grief attendant in it more often than not leaves me speechless. I am thankful for words which can begin to unlock the pent-up sadness. The poem is inspired by the verses of Job 38:1-7 (ESV) which are below. Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:   ...

Several years ago, as I was preaching through Psalm 119, I wrote a series of poems inspired by their verses. This sonnet derives its inspiration from Psalm 119:129-144 and especially verse 130 which reads, “The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.” When I was posting these poems, my father-in-law recorded himself reading one and texted it to me. He was a bit...

Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he ridiculed the Jews. - Nehemiah 4:1 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. - Luke 18:9 Sanballat, you stinky polecat, You heavy-handed, fat-headed rat You poser, you loser, you boozer ding-bat. Tally these up on your clay ledger mat Suc...

After Malcolm Guite’s poem titled, “What If?” and inspired by Revelation 12:15 which reads, “The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood.” From the Dragon's mouth words pour out As a river where truth seems to shout: The shameful curses and accusations, Of scorching scornful condemnations, The accuser’s raging imprecations, To drown and ma...

This poem was written as a part of the Lent Poem a Day Challenge in 2023 and hosted by Ben Squires (IG: @ bicspics2020 ). I lasted all of one day. Here’s Ash Wednesday’s poet inspired by the word, “phonograph.” It draws in part from 2 Peter 1:18, which reads, “ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain .” The scribbled voice of spinning sound R...