Creating a Credo - What do you believe?

The word “credo” comes from the Latin, and literally means, “I believe.” You may be familiar with it as a religious term. Do you really know what you believe – in general, or about a specific issue? How does what you believe define who you are? A credo can also be written as an instructional piece of material, like the Desiderata: here’s what you should believe, here’s what you should strive for. What would you advise others about how to survive this world?

First: read the Credo poems in our class anthology, SM. Read them carefully, note what the poets are doing to create a definition of one's identity. Look at this Credo:

Credo

I believe in the testament of bones, their tensile strength.

Little girls jumping rope, boys with hockey sticks,

leap moons every day. They whirl like planets

and their bones turn the wheel of the universe.

I believe in the torso, ankles, spine, and those small

sticky ribs. I rejoice in my bones each morning,

rise from bed on legs that hold me straight,

walk me to the kitchen. I lift my coffee cup

with a slender filigree of fingers. My hat

fits my skull and I dare the world with my chin.

At night, my bones retract into a thin skin of dreams.

These, too, I believe. An undercut of sorrow

runs beneath. I accept the slow dissolve into mineral.

I touch my knees, my breastbone, feel the outward scars,

believe that mysteries are happening deeper than skin;

so soon bones diminish and fall away.

I believe nothing is wasted: calcium-crumble,

grate of shale, arrowheads once lost now found,

even shiny leaves, the pointed blades of grass.

Everything that has moved in the rain.

-- Jennifer McPherson

McPherson combines elements of praise, list, and ethics with her very close and appreciative musing on bones. Her amazement at the hard work of bones, the movements that specific bones let us make, and the mystery of how bones fade away with time, all come through with her concrete details, her carefully chosen images, and her concise use of the phrase "I believe."

Credo

by Judith Roche

I believe in the cave paintings at Lascaux,
the beauty of the clavicle,
the journey of the salmon,
her leap up any barrier,
the scent of home waters
she finds through celestial navigation.
I believe in all the gods –
I just don’t like some of them.
I believe the war is always against the imagination,
is recurring, repetitive, and relentless.
I believe in fairies, elves, angels and bodisatvas,
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
I have seen and heard ghosts.
I believe that Raven invented the Earth
And so did Coyote. In archeology
lie the clues. The threshold is numinous
and the way in is the way out.
I believe in the alphabets - all of them -
and the stories seeping from their letters.
I believe in dance as prayer, that the heart
beat invented rhythm and chant –.
or is it the other way around –
I believe in the wisdom of the body.
I believe that art saves lives
and love makes it worth living them.
And that could be the other way around, too.

-- Judith Roche

Roche's poem looks at the larger mysteries of the universe - Creation, Prayer, Wisdom, Art. But she still uses very particular images, unpredictable combinations, and specific details to create her sweeping statements. Hers is an inclusive belief system that, like McPherson's, accepts even the endings of mystery.

These pieces require their authors to be honest and unpredictable, mundane and risky, thorough and concise. A credo is your definition of self: it may be your self at any given moment, the self you aspire to become, the self you used to be, or the core self that never changes. It is both a concrete assertion, and an imaginary, abstract thing. To write a Credo requires time, passion, and craft. Don’t skimp on any of these ingredients.

Here are some exercises to get you started. Try at least two of them, even if you think you know what kind of credo you want to create - you want to make use of the unpredictability of language to help hit that magic combination of words.

Exercise A

Start each line below with “I believe.”
1. Write down five specific things you believe about one or all of these topics: religion, politics, nutrition, a particular sport, sex.
2. Write down five specific things you believe about one or all of these topics: asparagus, birds, sweatshirts, small appliances, personal hygiene.
3. Write down five things you do NOT believe in, from any of the above categories.
4. Write down three things you WISH you believed in (no limits).
5. Write down two things you USED TO believe in, but don’t any longer (no limits).
6. Write down what you believe is THE MOST AMAZING thing or event in the known or unknown universe, or simply in your own personal experience.
7. Use these lines to construct a poem that starts, “I believe…”
8. Revise: start adding in WHY you believe these things for all or every other line. See what happens to the poem. Remove some of the “I believe” statements to create a list-like tone. Check on your choice of verbs, words, clichés, unintentional repetitions, predictability. Strive for your own, unique voice in every possible way.

Exercise B

1. Do Exercise A, but start each line with “I don’t believe” instead of “I believe” (Sarah Lewis Holmes does this in her poem (above) with great effect, building a semi-absurd but also serious commentary on how to live one’s truest life). When you get to #6, tell us the most heretical, incredible, inhumane, unconscionable thing you don’t believe in: for example, “I don’t believe in flossing,” or “I don’t believe in an omniscient God,” or “I don’t believe in stretching before exercise.” This line is totally personal, and completely up to you, but remember: it still needs to make good poetry.

Exercise C
1. Write a credo from someone else’s perspective, Examples: Janitor’s Credo. Code-writer’s Credo. Fraternity/Sorority Credo. Designated Driver’s Credo. The Good Son’s (Daughter’s) Credo. The key here: GET INTO CHARACTER.

Exercise D
1. Write a credo that is about only one specific topic or event. Check out the infamous “Crash’s Credo” from the movie Bull Durham at watch the “Bull Durham” scene on you-tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBfdl6hNZ9k - this would be an example of a very specific life philosophy! Ex: Vacation Credo. Lawn-mowing Credo. Cheater’s Credo. Dog-owner’s Credo. Sex Credo. Sunday Credo. Exam Credo. Hangover Credo. The key here: FOCUS.

Exercise E.
1. Steal a great line from the credo poems in SM. Use it as your jumping off point for a topic-specific poem. For example, Jennifer McPherson’s line, “I believe in the testament of bones” would be a great start to a poem about the qualities, importance of, work of, dreams of, or memories of, bones.

Exercise F.
Go to http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=4538138 and choose one of the “This I Believe” audio essays from NPR to listen to; freewrite on what the essay evokes in your mind about the topic (whether it be something about race, forgiveness, good neighbors, or ghosts); use some of the lines to write a “found” credo; write ABOUT the essay (“Amy Tan believes in ghosts; she believes in scary ghosts that lurk under chairs, she believes in baby ghosts that cry out for lost mothers…”).

I have tried my hand at writing a credo several times. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. This is an older effort, meant to focus on my move to Virginia from the west coast. Now that I’ve been here awhile, it might be time to try this exercise again.


Credo
-- Deborah Miranda

I believe that the scent of ions bristling on the tip
of a thunderstorm chemically alters our brain cells

like the breath of a passing god.
I believe that round, olive-green hills trigger

the heartsongs of ancestors still dwelling
in the ridges of blue mountains.

I believe in robins, their liquid jungle cries overflowing
from ancient fountains of praise.

I don’t believe in promises pulled from weeping children,
or lovers. I don’t believe in the noble poor,

the noble savage, or the born-again politician.
I believe in a brilliant, distracted Creator

who’s forgotten to feed the kids but snags
a Pulitzer with that terra cotta sculpture. I believe

in the languid lure of purple phlox on the road home,
forget-me-nots sprouting in abandoned yards

and the fervent green cries of a thousand acorns
all sprouting at once, in love.