He Held Radical Light
The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this moving meditation, celebrated poet Christian Wiman explores the profound relationships between art, faith, and the eternal
What is it we want when we can't stop wanting? And how do we make that hunger productive and vital rather than corrosive and destructive? These are the questions that animate Christian Wiman as he delves into the complex interplay of art, faith, death, and memory. Above all, He Held Radical Light is a love letter to poetry, filled with moving, surprising, and sometimes funny encounters with the poets Wiman has known. Seamus Heaney opens a suddenly intimate conversation about faith; Mary Oliver puts half of a dead pigeon in her pocket; A. R. Ammons stands up in front of an audience and refuses to read. Urgent and intense, yet lively and entertaining, this essay collection is a sharp sequel to Wiman's earlier memoir, My Bright Abyss - a must-read for anyone interested in the power of language to illuminate the ineffable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wiman (My Bright Abyss), a poet and professor of religion and literature at Yale, weaves together philosophy and lush prose in an elliptical memoir about his long flirtation with the belief that he could gain immortality by writing a perfect poem. He explains this drive for the ideal through delicately theological questions, including: is God the goal of all artistic hunger? And "what does one want when one cannot stop wanting?" By pulling together close readings of poems (including a striking dissection of Philip Larkin's "Aubade") and a vast reservoir of personal anecdotes, Wiman approaches (but never quite reaches) his answers. The stories largely come from his tenure as editor of Poetry magazine, where encountering poets in person deeply affected him. "It's like being famous in your family," Mark Strand told him about being considered a famous poet. He reconsiders Mary Oliver's relationship to nature after she tells him that, out of respect, she carried a found dead bird in her pocket. Hearing Seamus Heaney read provided a singular experience of grace for Wiman: "I knew so much of his work not simply by heart, but by bone and nerve." Readers who allow themselves to be swept along by Wiman's beautiful style and oblique considerations will come away with fresh strategies for unpacking faith in the contemporary world.
