Writers Find Their Voice HDS INSPIRES NEW LEADERS IN POETRY AND FICTION
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efore he became an award-winning poet and
The poem reflects Lewis’s study of sacred literature,
Episcopal priest, Spencer Reece, MTS ’90,
mixing memories of her time in India with a myth
attended Harvard Divinity School. He took
about the Hindu goddess Parvati, who jumped into a
classes on Flannery O’Connor, the Bible,
fire to prove her purity, after which her charred body
and the nineteenth-century Transcendentalist writer,
fell to earth in pieces. Lewis turns the ancient story
poet, and HDS student Ralph Waldo Emerson.
about a goddess into an occasion for reflecting on the
At a reading in spring 2016 at Harvard’s Houghton
human condition:
Library, award-winning poet and HDS alumna Robin Coste Lewis frequently referred to her time at HDS and the importance of professors like the late Rev. Peter Gomes and Professor Diana Eck, for whom she worked as a research assistant.
perhaps
wracked with doubt.” Lewis’s talent for putting different source materials to new uses is on display throughout Voyage of the
C. E. Morgan, MDiv ’09, was still a student at HDS
Sable Venus, whose title poem is a collage of words
when she started writing her first novel, All the Living,
repurposed from museum catalogs. Every phrase in
about an orphaned woman who marries young and
the poem is drawn from the titles or descriptions of
moves onto a farm in Kentucky.
artworks depicting black female bodies from all of
Creative writers have been attending HDS for a long
Western art history. Lewis turns prodigious amounts
time, but why? What is the connection between writing poetry, novels, or memoir and an institution dedicated
of archival research into a commentary on race and gender that feels simultaneously historical and
to ministry training and the scholarly study of religion?
personal.
The answers are as varied as the authors themselves.
During her time at HDS, Lewis not only gained
They may come to study theology, languages, or literature in their religious contexts, or to prepare
scholarly training and opportunities for travel that eventually paid poetic dividends, but also experienced
themselves for various forms of service or ministry.
moments of personal revelation.
Whatever their individual paths, at HDS, writers keep
“The last time I was on campus was for the memorial
finding both inspiration and the tools they need for
service of Rev. Peter Gomes, who was my teacher and
unorthodox careers, which often combine writing
who hosted high tea at his house every Wednesday,”
with other callings.
Lewis explained at her reading. “I, of course, like
Coste Lewis, who won the National Book Award for
most divinity school students, eventually started to
Poetry in 2015 for her first book, Voyage of the Sable Venus, graduated in 1997 with an MTS degree in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature. Explaining the genesis of a poem, titled “On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari,” Lewis said, “Diana Eck recommended I go on a trip to India to teach a semester abroad program. This poem happened because of that trip.”
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embodiment is so bewildering, even God grows
have a prolonged and dramatic existential crisis. And I remember going to tea one day after shaving my head, and Peter looked at me, and he asked, ‘Are you OK?’” “I just looked at him and said, ‘Peter, do you have any idea what is going on?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Not a clue, darling.’ But he said it with a tone of joy, as if to say, ‘And that’s the point.’”
