April Update: The Pope said artists are...

Here are 4 things in this month of April that are flexing the creative intelligence muscles on this middle-aged brain and bodice—and they may do the same for you?

• FT writer Enuma Okoro met the Pope at a Papal conference in 2023 with writers of all kinds and shared these words from his address:

  Artists are those who with their eyes both see and dream…

  Let me say something else: You are also the voice of the ‘restlessness’ of the human spirit. You know quite well that artistic inspiration is not only consoling but also disquieting, since it presents both the beautiful and the tragic realities of life…

  I am referring not only to social criticism, but also to the deep struggles of the soul, the complexity of decision-making, the contradictions of our human existence. There are things in life which at times we can barely grasp, or find adequate words to express. This is your own fertile terrain, your proper field of activity. It is often the place too where we encounter God, in an experience which is always ‘superabundant,’ like an overflowing basin. That is the challenge I would like to present to you today: to go beyond set bounds, to be creative without downplaying your own spiritual restlessness and that of humanity. To embrace, poetically, the anxious yearnings present in the human heart, lest they grow cold and fade away.

The Pope is a figure of history. And this Pope has embodied how we’re negotiating change at this moment in time. He also makes it clear in these kinds of addresses that we all have a role to play in enacting change.

I find what he said to be so beautiful because in my own writing and understanding of history, he is right, I always come to writing to quell my restlessness, to meet my desire to reach into a basin of memories, visions, words, sensory truths, and shape them into something that can be understood in some measure, and shared.

And then, inevitably, in this process I can “embrace” what is always complex and lives in the realm of contradiction not absolutes. To me that means, yes, I can watch the papal funeral and think about how as a person I am both uncomfortable yet awed by the all-male hierarchical power and tradition on display. I don’t live in the realm of good or bad, but full seeing-ness. Here was a person that was selected to have a big microphone and be worshipped. What is the impact of that?

My artistic practice helps me consider this and lean into it.

• The Pope died during Holy Week and Poetry month (!). In honour of Poetry month, I bring you this poem that connected me to spirit, written by Jim Moore. And I wrote a little response to it. Maybe you want to as well?

• The Leopard Netflix series is kind of like my novel—it is also soooo beautiful and thrilling and mesmerizing to watch. It’s about Revolution and family and Sicily.

• On the topic of Revolution, last week I went to the White House and discovered Pussy Grabs Back and you can play roller hockey by the front gates. Can America please stay so solidly collage-like and loud and untidy? And democratic.