Welcome to In Parallel, an offshoot of the OnScript podcast, in which we explore the connections between biblical and contemporary poetry.

I'm your host, Brent Strawn. I'm a biblical scholar and theologian. I teach at Duke University, where I am Professor of Old Testament

and Professor of Law.

Alas, I cannot claim to be a poet. Well, not a published one at any rate. Instead, I'm what

would have been called in older days a poetaster, a term for someone who dabbles in poetry,

which is true enough in my case. According to Lewis Turco, a poetaster is a term used of one who writes in verse but is incapable

of rising to the level of the artist. Yeah, if I'm being honest, that hurts a bit, but sadly,

it is also probably true. But with your permission, maybe Poetaster can be defined a bit more

positively for present purposes.

Let it refer here, or at least in my case, to someone who appreciates and loves the art of poetry.

And that is most definitely true in my case.

I have enjoyed poetry for as long as I can remember, though I cannot now fully describe or recall why.

Perhaps it was the elegance of poetic lineation on the printed page where the lines of poetry

stood out so distinctively, so deceptively simply from the otherwise indistinguishable forest of prose

in the poetry-riddled works of writers like J.R.R. Tolkien

and other fantasy authors that I read as a kid.

That, at least, is one in coate memory, or perhaps better poetic image that sticks in my mind

from those early days.

Music in my mind from those early days. Ecclesiastes 3, a poem about time and life. The poet W.H. Auden once said that poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings.

His remark seems spot on for this famous poem found in the book of Ecclesiastes.

The title of this book in Hebrew is Kohelet, which is also the name or title of the person who speaks in it.

And so, for the time being, we can talk about the poem in Ecclesiastes 3 as

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