The Stars of Tallapoosa

The Stars of Tallapoosa gave me an overwhelming religious feeling. Many times I don’t contemplate exactly what constitutes my religion (protestant), but I instead try and internalize it as a feeling. After reading this poem, I just felt religious. When the poem notes that “there is no moon” I pictured a completely different (almost Star Wars like) yet heavenly world. I think the poem illustrates an important point about religion. For me, the poem’s imagery was a key mechanism in conveying a religious aura. Many times, religion is merely a mental image. Despite the fact that we have been studying religion in a broad sense (paying special attention to how religion as a whole provides a framework by which to live), we ignored the idea that sometimes religion is a mere feeling. This was illustrated somewhat by the artwork we studied last week, but I think it comes out most in Stevens’ poetry. I guess I felt an almost magical feeling when reading The Stars of Tallapoosa. Magic (in my opinion) would be one of the broadest concepts that relates to religion, but nevertheless magic relates to the unknown. As I said before, sometimes religious feelings come from the unknown.