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Fifty Entries Against Despair
by Christian Wiman
Christian Wiman braids poetry, memoir, and criticism to create an inspired, career-defining work.
Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer―perhaps none―do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, an award-winning poet and the author of My Bright Abyss, lays the motion of his mind on the page in this genre-defying work, an indivisible blend of poetry, criticism, theology, and searing memoir. As Marilynne Robinson wrote, "[Wiman's] poetry and his scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world ... [It] enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader's surprise and assent are one and the same."
Zero at the Bone begins with Wiman's preoccupation with despair, and through fifty brief pieces, he unravels its seductive appeal. The book is studded with the poetry and prose of writers who inhabit Wiman's thoughts, and the voices of Wallace Stevens, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, and others join his own. At its heart and Wiman's, however, are his family―his young children (who ask their own invaluable questions, like "Why are you a poet? I mean why?"), his wife, and those he grew up with in West Texas. Wiman is the rare thinker who takes on the mantle of our greatest mystics and does so with an honest, profound, and contemporary sensibility. Zero at the Bone is a revelation.
"The shift in forms and tone throughout this incandescent mosaic keeps the reader alert and curious; each piece is an adventure, provocation, meditation, lesson, or attempted proof. A passionate literary religious thinker in the mode of Marilynne Robinson, Wiman is magnetizing and revelatory." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Wiman weaves together poetry, essay, and memoir in this dazzling, multivocal examination of and refusal to accept existential despair ... Wiman's knowledge is vast, and his evocative imagery lingers in the mind ... [Zero at the Bone is] a gorgeous ode to the power of poetry to grapple with life's most anguished moments." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
This information about Zero at the Bone was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Christian Wiman is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, including two memoirs, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer and He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art; Every Riven Thing, winner of the Ambassador Book Award; Once in the West, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and Survival Is a Style―all published by FSG. He teaches religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and at Yale Divinity School.
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