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Original Essays | April 29, 2013
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This title in other editionsEvery Riven Thingby Christian Wiman
AwardsReview-A-Day"Christian Wiman (currently, the editor of Poetry magazine) writes poems that are a study in torque, full of twisting force, words and lines pushing and pulling each other into forms of astonishing solidity and grace. His third collection, Every Riven Thing, is a beautiful and wrenching dialogue with death, decay, and the divine and is one of the best books of poems published last year." Jill Owens, Powells.com (Read the entire Powells.com review) Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A vibrant new collection from one of America's most talented young poets.
Every Riven Thing is Christian Wiman's first collection in seven years, and rarely has a book of poetry so borne the stamp of necessity. Whether in stark, haiku-like descriptions of a cancer ward, surrealistic depictions of a social order coming apart, or fluent, defiant outpourings of praise, Wiman pushes his language and forms until they break open, revealing startling new truths within. The poems are joyful and sorrowful at the same time, abrasive and beautiful, densely physical and credibly mystical. They attest to the human hunger to feel existence, even at its most harrowing, and the power of art to make our most intense experiences not only apprehensible but transfiguring. Review:"Grave and thoughtful, careful in its acoustic effects, and at times breathtaking in its achievement, this third set of verse from Poetry editor Wiman is by far his best. Though his forms vary, his goals and attitudes stay clear: he wants to see the ugly and the difficult without turning away, to describe them tersely and accurately, and to see the handiwork of God. Early poems handle his own chronic, serious illness, and its grueling treatments: 'Needle of knowledge, needle of nothingness,/ gringing through my spine to sip at the marrow of me.' Much of the rest of the volume reacts to the illness and death of the poet's father: 'Not altogether gone,' the elderly man looks 'half-childlike... before he's seized again with a sharp impersonal turbulence/ like angry laundry.' Surrounded by such failures of body and mind, Wiman (Hard Night) doubts that he can say anything fitting, or even pious, about his God, 'that to say the name God/ is a great betrayal'--and yet, he tells us, he must try and try: the religious sentiments sit uneasily with the stark scenes of fact, of bodily decay and environmental destruction, but the poet insists on the reality of them all. (Nov.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)
Review:"A collection that sings with the beauty of life and at the same time acknowledges its fragility: 'To believe is to believe you have been torn/ from the abyss, yet stand waveringly on its rim.'" Library Journal
Review:"Wiman...brings fire and gravity to poems forged in a battle....Exquisitely aware that every thing on earth, no matter how hard used, channels the mysterious force that makes atoms dance and hearts beat, Wiman, in the spirit of Hopkins, infuses molten life into every word." Booklist
Synopsis:A vibrant new collection from one of America's most talented young poets Every Riven Thing is Christian Wimans first collection in seven years, and rarely has a book of poetry so borne the stamp of necessity. Whether in stark, haiku-like descriptions of a cancer ward, surrealistic depictions of a social order coming apart, or fluent, defiant outpourings of praise, Wiman pushes his language and forms until they break open, revealing startling new truths within. The poems are joyful and sorrowful at the same time, abrasive and beautiful, densely physical and credibly mystical. They attest to the human hunger to feel existence, even at its most harrowing, and the power of art to make our most intense experiences not only apprehensible but transfiguring. About the AuthorChristian Wiman was born and raised in West Texas. He is the editor of Poetry and the author of two previous collections of poems, Hard Night (2005) and The Long Home (2007), and one collection of prose. He lives in Chicago. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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