Christian Voice to stage further protests against poetry book

Christian Voice to stage further protests against poetry book

Alison Flood

Christian activists are due to stage a protest outside the Welsh Assembly tomorrow over Patrick Jones's poetry collection Darkness Is Where the Stars Are, which they describe as "ugly, indecent and blasphemous".

Jones is scheduled to read his poetry at the Assembly's T Hywel building tomorrow at 12pm, but the group Christian Voice – which has already successfully campaigned against Jones launching his work at Waterstone's Cardiff branch last month – is planning "a public act of Christian witness" outside the building.

It has also emailed members urging them to apply for tickets for the Assembly event, and for a reading at Borders' Cardiff branch that evening, at which a protest is also planned.

"Say how much you would like an invitation to the event, but don't say you wish to protest!" the organisation said in an email. "Say whatever is needed to get alongside and get a ticket without bearing false witness. You cannot give a false name for either event as ID will be required. So Onward, Christian soldiers, Stand up, stand up for Jesus!"

Darkness Is Where the Stars Are is a collection of poems dealing with issues including domestic violence against men, war, religion and the environment.

Christian Voice objects particularly to one of the poems, which includes the "blasphemous assertion" of sex between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Lines it objects to include "All I preach is deicide", "today I have become a born-again atheist" and "god does not die because he was never alive".

In a statement on its website, it adds: "The poems aren't actually much good, they hardly rhyme, they rarely scan or have rhythm, but they possibly have enough profanity and references to female genitalia to get the literati excited."

National director of Christian Voice Stephen Green said there would be a coach-load of protesters arriving tomorrow for the event. "It can never be wrong to do what is morally right," he said. "Of course [Jones] has the right to think what he likes and say what he likes in the privacy of his own lavatory, but he does not have the right to insult the saviour of the world two weeks before Christmas."

Jones and his publisher Cinnamon Press said they would be going ahead with the events as planned. "The poems to me are not blasphemous, they raise a debate," Jones said. "[The book is] a triumph of talking about my own personal struggle in life and I'm very proud of it, [but] now I just feel I have to constantly defend myself."

He said that he and his publisher "just weren't prepared" for the reaction the book, which took him 20 years to write, received. "It got out of control after Waterstone's gave in, then it snowballed, like with Jerry Springer the Opera," he added. "I almost can't quite believe it … It's legitimised because it's religious [and] we tiptoe around extremist religious activity."

Cinnamon Press, a small publisher founded three-and-a-half years ago, said it had been flooded with supportive emails, some from Christians. "I think this has given it a wider market," said editor Jan Fortune-Wood. "Poetry is a niche market, and if you sell a couple of hundred copies you're lucky – this has been extraordinary publicity."

On its website, Christian Voice wrote: "Should the event be cancelled, we shall have something to praise the Lord Jesus Christ for! On the other hand, should the Assembly choose to insult Him, we shall praise His holy name and pray to Him for mercy."


guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/10/poetry-christianity/print