Religious Themes in "Practical Gods"

In a poetry volume titled "Practical Gods," religious-themed poems are certainly expected. Dennis does write poems with religious allusions and subject matter, but he does not necessarily take a specific stand or have a didactic tone, which I found surprising at first, considering the number of Biblical allusions.

For example:

The God Who Loves You

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many features.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week--
Three fine houses sold to deserving families--
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in sight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will fill compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imaging him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.

There are several techniques that Dennis uses that are unique.

First of all, the poem is in the second person--a direct address. Not very many poems are written in second person, and there's a good reason for this: it is difficult to pull off without sounding too preachy. What effect does the direct address have in this poem? While the speaker is not God, the second-person mimics God's commands, especially from the Old Testament. The prevalent use of "you" reminds the reader of the 10 Commandments, or any other part of the Bible where God lays down guidelines that when not followed, result in a worsened quality of life. "The God Who Loves You" has more of a reflective, melancholy tone than a didactic tone; this reflects Dennis' tendency to portray religion in more flexible terms. By having the speaker of the poem act as an intermediary between the subject (referred to as "you") and God, Dennis paints a religious picture different than the the traditional, archetypal view of God speaking forcefully and personally to humans.

Second, the repetition of the phrase "the god who loves you" throughout the poem underscores the non-traditional manner than Dennis views religion. "God loves you" is a familiar phrase, but Dennis uses it in an unfamiliar manner. In general, religion is portrayed as humans making sacrifices to God and then having to change their behavior to fit with the mandates of God. Humans are far more concerned about God's opinion of them than vice-versa. Yet, in this poem, Dennis portrays the opposite: God is pondering the happiness of the subject and is demonstrating insecurity and uncertainty, while the human is too busy to pay attention to the concerns of God. It's interesting that all of the references to "he"--referring to God--are not capitalized. (Traditionally, all of the pronouns would be.) The lack of capitalization brings God and the subject of the poem to the same level, like in the last stanza: "...by imagining him / No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend / No closer than the actual friend you made at college." In a way, the God that Dennis describes is contradictory: he is omniscient, which is in accordance with traditional Biblical beliefs ("knowing as he does exactly what would have happened") , yet he is also placated by the speaker describing life's events. This succeeds in breaking traditional "God" roles.

I thought that this was an interesting choice for the final poem of the volume. For a volume of poetry with mainly religious subjects, this poem advocates independence from God. This, I think, is the crux of many of Dennis' poems: spirituality is important and something worth analyzing, but the traditional religious viewpoint is not always correct or desirable. We see through Dennis' poems that he believes spirituality to be an everyday thing that is largely individualized. Consider these last lines of the poem: "With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed, / Which for all you know is the life you've chosen." To end this volume with the word "chosen" is, I think perfect--throughout, Dennis has advocated a non-rigid conception of spirituality that centers around human choice.