By Bob Horning | Photography by Jim Luning
The words come slow so
You better listen quick or
You miss the fascination
Of Anthony Zick.
But you won’t miss
his puns.
As a senior, he won a spot on the highly competitive Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam team. One of his poems was chosen to be included in the Speak Green competition sponsored by the Sundance Institute at the National Youth Poetry Slam Festival. He also read a poem called The Pundit in Washington D.C., and, as his teacher said, had the audience rolling with laughter. Several of his poems have appeared in local magazines.
Tony has been drawn to poetry since grade school. In high school, he took four semesters of creative writing, where every week the students had to present something to the class and have it critiqued. Tony usually chose poetry. His dad recalls that Tony used to stay up late listening to jazz and writing poetry.
“I write poetry because I enjoy participating in beautiful things,” he says. ”It allows me to communicate the beauty of the human experience. It’s a way to share love that has resonated with me.”
Though his laid-back personality and affinity for humor might hide it, Tony takes his poetry seriously. He reads and studies contemporary poets, and lately has been learning about poets from previous generations: T.S. Eliot, Auden, Yeats, Hopkins, Tennyson, Donne, Shakespeare. “My favorite could be John Donne because of the fire and wit in his short poems,” Tony says.
Tony reworks a poem until it’s as good as he can make it, but doesn’t consider it finished until he gets feedback from others. “I have come to peace with the critiquing,” Tony says. “Sometimes I’ll write something that I love, then I show it to a teacher or friend and out comes the red pen. Most of the time, I like my writing more after it’s been critiqued; it becomes more focused and less self-indulgent. Without help, I can’t improve at anything.”
Jeff Kass, the writing teacher who has been so impressed with Tony’s poetry, says, “He crafts language with precision and concision and works to come up with fresh phrasing. He has great range as a writer. He pays close attention to the world around him and is able to find poetic moments and images in the sideboards of his house, the joy of creating puns, or pushing a van out of the snow.”
As the years pass, Tony is formulating his concept of literature. He says, “It is using words in an imaginative way to create a snapshot of dramatic themes in life for others. By exploring the human experience from my perspective, I am inherently expressing who I am. I often try to convey a sense of Christian joy, whether the experience written about be tragic, humorous or ecstatic in nature.”
Tony considers himself a poet first, though much of what he writes is meant to be performed, at a public reading or in competition at a poetry slam. At a slam, judges grade poets on both poetry and performance. The audience participates by snapping their fingers, cheering, or laughing; or booing the judges if they consider the score given to be too low.
According to Kass, the student has changed the way the teacher understands performance poetry. In an article about Tony on Ann Arbor.com, Kass wrote, “I have learned that poets don’t have to use profanity in order to be heard. That writers can be both graceful and startling, often in the same poem. That there’s always a place for a good, or even a bad pun.”
Ray Zick, Tony’s father, says “Writing poetry allows Tony the chance to reflect. He thinks deeply and thinks things through. Because he speaks slowly, people can assume his mind is slow, but it’s just that he is always processing. He chose Thomas Aquinas as his confirmation name because people once thought Thomas was a dumb ox. Tony has qualities suitable to a poet – he has always been devout, passionate and sensitive; qualities also suitable for a priest.”
Which gets us to the other side of Tony. Or, is it the same side in a different light?
For the last 10 months, Tony has been living at the Father McGivney House at St. Thomas Parish in Ann Arbor (see sidebar) in order to better discern a possible call to the priesthood.
“God has worked in my heart to make my faith my own since late in high school,” he says. “Now that I’m growing more into an adult spiritual life, and have had the thought of priesthood in my head, I should at least give it a shot.”
“There is no greater thing I could do for love of God and others. If he wants me to say Mass in his name, what could be better? But I want to do what God is calling me to do. I can’t say right now that I am leaning more toward the priesthood than marriage and career (teaching English or literature),” he explained.
Living at McGivney helps him “have a more disciplined prayer life. We have the opportunity to do the Liturgy of the Hours with the priests in the morning and evening. I spend time every day in prayer, whether it be reading Scripture, praying the rosary, or sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
“I am learning what a priest’s life is like by seeing them in action, and by being with them. The men at McGivney have dinner and discussion with priests on Thursdays. And, Father Bill Ashbaugh, through our monthly spiritual direction, has helped me grow in my relationship with the Lord. We talk about discernment directly and about personal things that affect discernment.
“I notice a growing desire to be a father, whether spiritually or physically. And to do the things a father should do – love, reach out to people, bring Christ to others,” he says
Father Bill, pastor at St. Thomas, says, “Tony has brought an amazing balance of humor and seriousness to the McGivney House. Humor in the connections of life that are ‘punny;’ or as Tony would say...”Oh, I mean funny;’ and seriousness in that it is clear that the house is about God and responding to him. I admire Tony for his courage to take a step of faith – be it to get up in front of a group and share a poem, or to say, ‘God may be calling me to the priesthood. I want to listen.’”
“Living at McGivney House,” Tony says, “has provided spiritual stability for me. Being a part of a community makes it less easy to get caught up in and distracted by all that goes on in everyday life. I feel more mature than 10 months ago and have learned a lot about Catholicism from the other guys. They are a lot of fun, too.”
So which is the real Anthony Zick? Priest or poet?
If you ask his mother, Suzan, she will tell you that the two sides meld into one once you know his personality. “He is a gentle soul who loves God and loves people, and that comes out in his poetry and his spirituality. He is aware of what’s going on in the world through his interactions with people from all walks of life, Christian or not. He loves helping people (for example, he tutors writing two hours per week) and is sensitive to those who have been rejected or have trouble. He tries to make peace and make bad situations better.”
Jeff Kass also notices traits common to priest and poet: “He listens completely to people who are talking to him. He’s honest and reliable, he’s sincere and authentic, a great person who is well worth listening to.”
No matter what he does, Tony says “ I try to keep in mind throughout the day that Christ loves me infinitely without me earning it or being able to earn it; with that, I do my duties for love of him.”
The Father McGivney House, across the street from the rectory of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Ann Arbor, was purchased by the Knights of Columbus in 2006 as a house of discernment. Living there means agreeing to discerning the direction of your life, including the priesthood, and receiving spiritual direction from the priests. Many of the eight residents are altar servers, attend daily Mass and join the priests in praying the Liturgy of the Hours in the morning and evening, as their schedules allow. They also meet with the parish priests every Thursday to have dinner together, catch up on each others’ lives and hear about aspects of priestly life. Twice a month, there is a formation talk, and the other two weeks they meet in small groups.
“As one resident, now a seminarian, said, “I loved having access to the rectory chapel to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Informal chats and occasional lunches with the priests gave me more insight into their lives and service. As I got to know them, I began to see myself doing what they were doing.”
|
