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Marc Goodman
Instructor Thwing
Writing 102
13 July 2009
“The Bright Altar of the Dashboard”: “The Sacred” and the Spiritual

In a 2008 interview in Christianity Today, Stephen Dunn describes himself as an “ex-

Catholic without guilt” and cites the French poet Paul Eluard’s statement, “there is another world

and it is in this one,” as a “credo” for his vocation as a poet (Dunn, “Provisional Conclusions”).

Elsewhere, Dunn has spoken of poetry as providing a “consideration of the ineffable” (Walking

Light 165) and a “heightened intuition of the numinous” (Walking Light 167). When pressed as

to whether he may, in fact, be a closet Christian, he replied, “Well, what I hope you are talking

about is a kind of moral attentiveness” (Dunn, “Provisional Conclusions”). In its content, form,

and tone, Dunn’s poem “The Sacred” exemplifies the possibilities of a post-religious, properly

spiritual poetry.

“The Sacred” makes no mention of God, houses of worship, or prayer in any

conventional or traditional sense, yet concerns itself resolutely with the spiritual. It does so by

transposing what might be thought of as religious categories to a secular key. The lines “others

knew the truth/ had been spoken/ and began speaking” analogize the classroom setting of ‘The

Sacred” to a laicized prayer meeting in which students testify as the spirit moves them (lines 7-

9). Similarly, the emphasis on retreat in the words “alone”, “hiding”, and “away” suggest a

secularized monasticism or even eremitism (lines 6, 10, 14). The phrase “the bright altar of the

dashboard” is only the most explicit expression of this transposition and music, of course, has

played an incalculably significant role in religious life across the ages (line 13).
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The form of the “The Sacred” likewise reflects a transposition of religious categories.

“The Sacred” is composed of one long sentence comprising 113 words spread out over 18 lines

that are further divided into 6 stanzas. By stretching out “The Sacred” in this way, Dunn

effectively prompts the reader to give equal consideration to each of its phrases in a manner that

evokes the liturgical. This stretching also mirrors the distension or dilation of time frequently

associated with experiences of the sacred. The two-character indent which begins the second line

of each stanza instantiates Dunn’s contention that the “unsayable” may demand “sometimes even

to let the white space around our words do some invisible work for us” (Walking Light 162).

Dunn’s hoped-for quality of “moral attentiveness” finds expression in the care with

which he has crafted both the content and form of “The Sacred” and ultimately infuses the

poem’s tone (Dunn, “Provisional Conclusions”). Dunn approves of, identifies with, and even

relishes the teacher’s question and students’ responses. By the evidence of “The Sacred,” Dunn’s

claim of “ex-Catholic[icism] without guilt” appears as genuine and thoroughgoing as his

achievement of the spiritual (Dunn, “Provisional Conclusions”). You could almost feel Dunn

personally providing the upward surge of the last three lines of the poem—as if he himself were

sitting in the back of the classroom preparing for takeoff—“the key/ in having a key/ and putting

it in, and going” (lines 16-18).

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Works Cited

Dunn, Stephen. “Provisional Conclusions: A Conversation With Poet Stephen Dunn.” Interview
with Aaron Rench. Christianity Today. 1 March 2008. 12 July 2009.
<http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/marapr/24.26.html>

Dunn, Stephen. "The Sacred." Literature: A Pocket Anthology, 3rd. ed. Ed. R.S. Gwyn. New
York: Penguin, 2007. (704).

Dunn, Stephen. Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry. New and
Expanded ed. Rochester: BOA Editions, Ltd., 2001.