A man raised from death at the fall of Jerusalem walks beyond his captive homeland to understand why he was restored to life, in turn recounting his search for meaning, for penance and for justice. This man will gain and lose everything – but not be left with nothing. The Mortaliad explores faith, violence, conviction, the progression of eras, mercy, passion and the price of grace. Updated daily.
The Mortaliad is a long poem in the style of a historical epic, written principally to become the longest poem ever written in human history. The title Mortaliad combines the Latin mortali- and the Greek -ad in recognition of its antecedents in the northern Mediterranean, especially the Aeneid and the Iliad. This title also supposes the stakes and subject of the poem – death, and what comes before. The alternate title shares a similar logic: Missus a Deo, or Sent from God.
Though it varies in scheme and structure, the Mortaliad fits the form of dactylic hexameter conformed to English, substituting a longum or a brevis with a stressed or an unstressed syllable, respectively. Changes to the rhyming scheme occur infrequently in the poem, usually to indicate a demarcation in a pattern of thinking or the presence of something supernatural. Similarly, enjambment signals a remarkable shift in possession.
How to Read the Mortaliad
This poem is divided into three component parts. First, numbered and named canticles break up the work into natural segments which flow as a continuous stream of consciousness. Of varying length, the canticles typically span about 240 lines.
Second, a group of ten canticles compose a staff. A staff works as a relatively self-contained stretch of the poem, sometimes as a standalone tale which can be read independent of the rest of the work. Every staff bears a name as well, and these identify the major themes and tone of the canticles within.
Third, every staff is set within a set of six staves which comprise a single rhapsody. A rhapsody provides a record in the major events of the story and aids in understanding the flow and movement of the characters’ lives. These collections also serve as manageable divisions for publishing purposes.
Finally, the entirety of the Mortaliad will constitute ten rhapsodies. My stated purpose fulfilled, the poem will close at over 200,000 verses, and about 2.2 million words.
Why I Am Writing the Mortaliad
My highest hope and most daring prayer is to be the author of the longest poem ever written or that will indeed ever be written. As mentioned above, my work will be finished after having written in excess of 200,000 verses and well over 2.2 million words. This is a hair-length longer than the current longest poem in human history, the Mahabharata, in terms of verse. However, by word count, it would be greater by roughly twenty-two percent. The Mortaliad will also be longer than the current longest poem in English, King Alfred, by about fifty-one percent at its completion.
Neither in pride nor presumption do I write this poem. A long poem serves a purpose, often a dramatic tale of a tribe or a myth-making epic, and the Mortaliad follows this precedent. Two reasons take preeminence. First, this is a trial of persistence to keep with me these virtues of patience, diligence, and perseverance. Exercising these daily might merit me these graces all my lifelong, insuring my faithfulness until my last hour. Second, I firmly believe by its creation, the Mortaliad will foment a renewal of Christian – indeed, of Catholic – life in our modern age. In exploring the breadth of the human experience by providing a testament with all my own faculties, I push toward enthroning a decisively Christian work as the longest and most recognized poem in our shared history. Here I do all for the greater glory of God. He will send His Holy Spirit to baptize the English language and purge it as if by fire. This nation of heretics and prideful apostates shall see with sober conviction a holy fruit on the vine of Jesus Christ and circumcise their stout hearts.
Final Response to Critics
Among the many criticisms leveled at the Mortaliad, four recur and merit response as they feature chiefly in reviewer examinations without providing substantial insight nor dealing in currency I particularly value. What follows shall encompass my one address to each characteristic of the poem contended within such examinations. First, the Mortaliad is, in point of fact, a long poem. For the individual who considers this property of the poem and produces some question as to whether it is indeed too long, words fail to express the feebleness of perspective required on his or her part and the proportionate hope of which I am bereft for his or her sake.
Second, the accusations of troublesome prose, inarticulate meandering and even unintelligibility regretfully arise in equal force. That a work of art does not communicate in its clearest available terms renders it not an exercise in style over substance but rather, quite simply, artistic in nature. Philosophy, science, theology and history reliably overcome this challenge but do not employ artistic faculties in an equanimous way, as these other disciplines neither claim to be art nor should be art. Would I revise my work to elucidate the Mortaliad with greater immediacy and accessibility belies that I hold no obligation to do so. Reflecting upon these two judgments, if a certain person agrees staunchly in either case I encourage him or her to instead peruse the anthologies of other American poets who wrote in the English language such as Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe or Robert Frost, all three of whom indeed created poetry both short in length and unobscure in meaning. Perhaps this poem I am writing is not for one of his or her taste or intellect.
Third, less prominent yet present in criticism of the Mortaliad regards the historical nature of the poem and whether it reflects with due respect the cultures, the moments in history, the languages, the people and the geography it depicts and features primarily. This often reflects some concern over accuracy but sometimes discerns some problem or other with the interpretation of the world as such shown in this poem. Of these four, this comment engenders a reply more than the others as I have undergone great effort to understand the subjects of which I write and continue to engage with relevant materials to better my treatment of them. Yet beyond this foundation I prepare no other defense. This poem is a work of fiction, I am not a Jewish man living in the 1st or 2nd century, I have not traversed the swaths of the Near East on foot and I certainly have no qualm with interpreting the world as such through my lens however contemporary or distant. No criminal destruction transpires by my writing.
Fourth, my ostensible purpose for writing has received attention as a diminishing factor for the Mortaliad as such, insofar as its creation is concomitant to my goal in elevating my Catholic faith, building my own virtues and written by design to excessive length. To read such motives as detrimental assumes such a standard might also exist for other such works which is demonstrably untrue. Whether an artist commits to a work to declare a ruler legitimate, to earn an income, to explain an otherwise problematic inherited tribal cosmology, to justify incidental or contingent national histories, to detail a moralizing story or to pass the time each performs the same function as my collection of reasons. An impetus aside from some nebulous philosophical allegiance to art as such or possession by a muse remains for every great work, lest it never develop to begin with.
This exhausts all I care to respond pertaining such criticisms. Any further remarks that are embodied here will be directed here.