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Poetry as a Window to the Soul“The metaphorical and symbolic nature of poetry is better fitted than prose to stimulate a religious response in many people’s minds.” Poetry is known to be a niche market. It’s notoriously difficult to sell, as struggling poets everywhere will tell you. Duane Johnson didn’t let that fact discourage him as he embarked on a project to publish an anthology of poems based on The Urantia Book. His motivations were too strong: to spread the truths of the revelation, touch lives with some of the concepts, and at least make general readers of poetry, stumbling upon an Amazon ad for the anthology, aware of The Urantia Book’s existence.
“When it comes to religion and spirituality, poetry can be more effective than prose,” he believes. “This is true because the metaphorical and symbolic nature of poetry is better fitted than prose to stimulate a religious response in many people’s minds.” So he was prepared to beg, borrow and invest some of his own money to pay for the cost of publication. A grant from the Fellowship’s Second Miler Grant Program solved his financing problem and Sailing to Salvington materialized into a beautiful publication featuring poetry by 11 authors, including Byron Belitsos and Gard Jameson; Jesus paintings from the collection of Mo and Jennifer Siegal; and a front cover by Gary Tonge. He was hopeful of making sales: “After all, there are the Midwayers, angels and others out there, helping us and helping other spiritual seekers.” At the time of this writing in January 2024, he had sold about a quarter of the 200 high-quality books printed at Mennonite Press in Kansas in June 2023. Sales were mainly to Urantia Book readers through pre-ordered copies and at the Fellowship’s 2023 summer international conference. Duane could not hide his disappointment that his ad campaign on Amazon had not yet brought in some sales from non-Urantia Book students. “Obviously, marketing is not my forte,” he conceded. But true to The Urantia Book’s exhortations to fatten upon disappointment and invigorate in the presence of difficulties, Duane is definitely not giving up. His plan at the end of 2023 was to regroup and try again early in the new year, and he said he was open to any suggestions on how to market the book. Duane can be contacted at duanej747@gmail.com. The Urantia Book Fellowship would like to thank supporters of the Second Miler Grant Program for helping to make possible Duane’s project and all the others the program has funded since 2020. | Learn more about the Second Miler Grant Program: Click here for details and application form. Read about some of the grant recipients' great projects:
Check out some of the other Urantia Book programs run by The Urantia Book Fellowhip.
Click here to make a donation to the Second Miler Grant Program or to The Urantia Book Fellowship. |
Duane, a retired journalist and editor now primarily writing poetry, has taken to heart the The Urantia Book’s observation that poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.Recent Blog Posts
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