The poet, novelist and biographer Robert Morgan, who
was raised in North Carolina, has written many intriguing poems that teach
his readers about southern folklore. Here’s just one example.
Holy Cussing
When the most intense revivals swept the mountains just a century ago, participants described the shouts and barks in unknown tongues, the jerks of those who tried to climb the walls, the holy dance and laugh. But strangest are reports of what was called the holy cuss. Sometimes a man who spoke in tongues and leapt for joy would break into an avalanche of cursing that would stun with brilliance and duration. Those that heard would say the holy spirit spoke as from a whirlwind. Words burned on the air like chains of dynamite. The listeners felt transfigured, and felt true contact and true presence then, as if the shock of unfamiliar and blasphemous profanity broke through beyond the reach of prayer and song and hallo to answer heaven’s anger with its echo.
Reprinted from Southern
Poetry Review, Vol. 43, No. 1, 2004 by
permission of the author. Copyright © 2004, by Robert Morgan, whose
most recent book is The Strange Attractor: New
and Selected Poems, Louisiana State University
Press, 2004. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2006.
