Nick's English Blog: April 2015

For my anthology I chose to make my theme poems about heaven. Heaven is defined as the dwelling place of the Deity and blessed dead but it can also be defined as a place or condition of utmost happiness. If you watch the news you have probably seen stories about people who, while temporarily dead, claim to have visited a place of peace, serenity, and happiness. Whenever these stories occur there always seems to be a team of scientists rushing to the scene to explain away the phenomenon as a simple delusion or hallucination caused by failing systems. I was always curious as to the motive behind these scientists, what reasons did they have for striving to disprove the existence of a place that by concept can't be disproved? Was it because the description given didn't seem like their idea of paradise? Even if they firmly believed this place was just a myth why did they feel they had to destroy the faith of those who did believe? Even so my fascination with this place grew. With the recent celebration of Easter I thought a lot about heaven and what it might be. I own seven songs in my iTunes library with heaven in the title and I hear about it almost every Sunday at church, but I never gave my thought to what it actually is. Instead I, like most people, have seemed more concerned about how to get there or if it even is real at all. Perplexed, I spent a great deal trying to figure out what a dimension and existence would be like without a body or constrains on my mind and what in my opinion would be a perfect existence. After much thought I tried to find out what other people thought on the matter and if it was at all similar to my ideas. Heaven is commonly referred to in popular culture in movies, songs, books and everything in between. With the greatly changing world and increased competition for resources (Jobs, colleges) it's nice to think of an escape- a constant place where existence is good and everyone's happy (well maybe everyone's happy depending on what you think on the matter). But although Heaven is referred to often it rarely is described in detail. Perhaps this is because song artists like to leave it open to interpretation or what they're idea of heaven is may be too intimate for them to be comfortable sharing with a public audience. Songs, movies, and shows always deal with getting to Heaven but that's where they usually end- right at the abyss. Perhaps this may also be due to the fact that how can we comprehend what we experience without the only thing we use to gauge experiences with in this life- our bodies. Heaven or a form of it appears in almost every religion, and it means something different to everyone. One person's vision of heaven may greatly differ from someone else's. I figured the best place to find others interpretation of paradise may be in poetry as poets often devote themselves to explaining less concrete and scientific concepts like love, hope, and enexplained human phenomenon. I discovered that poets have been writing about heaven for years- from William Blake's the Marriage of Heaven and Hell to Dante's interpretation of heaven after the poets famous trip through the inferno. What differ's people's interpretations isn't only what heaven is, but who ends up there and it's role in their religion. In picking my poems I first tried to find a variety of different types of poems from different ages to different formats to help people think from a variety of different perspectives. By experiencing different perspectives of heaven from poems written in different styles, tones, and ages perhaps we can further our ability to understand what heaven may be to our own friends/ family. My anthology however doesn't contain just interpretations of what heaven might be- it includes anything related to the topic. Upon reading my anthology I hope my readers can begin to imagine what heaven is to them, why heaven is that way for them, and how their thoughts might differ from their friends and family.