"The Song of Songs," poetry

Revised Edition: LukivPress (Victoria, BC), 2022.

Introduction

The Song of Solomon draws us into a story of loyal love between a Shulammite maiden and a shepherd boy. As in any dramatic story that explores the decisions of the heroine (protagonist), the antagonist creates conflict. Solomon, husband of 60 wives and 80 concubines, a poet and an influential king, a man who knows how to use words to flatter and woo women, plays that role as the city-bred antagonist bent on marrying the beautiful virgin girl from rural Shunem, or Shulem. Will the shepherd boy lose his loved one as another trophy wife for this immodest king? Will the Shulammite heroine reject the flattery of a great king? Will she make decisions based on her love for this shepherd? Likely the reader knows the answers. But he or she may not know that the unbreakable loyal love of this young, humble couple foreshadows an even greater love between Christ and his "bride," his congregation of anointed Christians (Revelation 21:2, 9).

An excerpt

toothless, the skipper

says, "think she's gonna wait fer

a lunkhead like you?"

The author

Dan Lukiv, published in 19 countries, is a poet, novelist, columnist, short story and article writer, and independent education researcher (hermeneutic phenomenology). As a creative writer, he apprenticed with Canada's Professor Robert Harlow (recipient of the George Woodcock Achievement award for an outstanding literary career), the USA's Paul Bagdon (Spur Award finalist for Best Original Paperback), and England's D. M. Thomas (recipient of the Cheltenham Prize for Literature, Orwell Prize [biography], Los Angeles Fiction Prize, and Cholmondeley award for poetry). He attended The University of British Columbia (creative writing department), the acclaimed Humber School for Writers (poetry writing program), and Writer's Digest University (novel writing program).