My Bright Abyss

My Bright Abyss

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0374216789

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A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry


Book Synopsis My Bright Abyss by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book My Bright Abyss written by Christian Wiman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry


He Held Radical Light

He Held Radical Light

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2018-09-11

Total Pages: 101

ISBN-13: 0374717818

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A moving meditation on memory, oblivion, and eternity by one of our most celebrated poets 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 explores the relationships between art and faith, death and fame, heaven and oblivion. 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. He Held Radical Light is as urgent and intense as it is lively and entertaining—a sharp sequel to Wiman’s earlier memoir, My Bright Abyss.


Book Synopsis He Held Radical Light by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book He Held Radical Light written by Christian Wiman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving meditation on memory, oblivion, and eternity by one of our most celebrated poets 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 explores the relationships between art and faith, death and fame, heaven and oblivion. 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. He Held Radical Light is as urgent and intense as it is lively and entertaining—a sharp sequel to Wiman’s earlier memoir, My Bright Abyss.


Survival Is a Style

Survival Is a Style

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2020-02-04

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 0374721416

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Named as a 2020 Book of the Year by The Times Literary Supplement Survival Is a Style, Christian Wiman’s first collection of new poems in six years, may be his best book yet. His many readers will recognize the musical and formal variety, the voice that can be tender and funny, credibly mystical and savagely skeptical. But there are many new notes in this collection as well, including a moving elegy to the poet’s father, sharp observations and distillations of modern American life, and rangy poems that merge and juxtapose different modes of speech and thought. The cumulative effect is extraordinary. Reading Survival Is a Style, one has the sense one is encountering work that will become a permanent part of American literature.


Book Synopsis Survival Is a Style by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book Survival Is a Style written by Christian Wiman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named as a 2020 Book of the Year by The Times Literary Supplement Survival Is a Style, Christian Wiman’s first collection of new poems in six years, may be his best book yet. His many readers will recognize the musical and formal variety, the voice that can be tender and funny, credibly mystical and savagely skeptical. But there are many new notes in this collection as well, including a moving elegy to the poet’s father, sharp observations and distillations of modern American life, and rangy poems that merge and juxtapose different modes of speech and thought. The cumulative effect is extraordinary. Reading Survival Is a Style, one has the sense one is encountering work that will become a permanent part of American literature.


Ambition and Survival

Ambition and Survival

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Copper Canyon Press

Published: 2013-06-14

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1619320932

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"That calling, at once religious, ethical, and aesthetic, is one that only a genuine poet can hear—and very few poets can explain it as compellingly as Mr. Wiman does. That gift is what makes Ambition and Survival, not just one of the best books of poetry criticism in a generation, but a spiritual memoir of the first order." —New York Sun "This weighty first prose collection should inspire wide attention, partly because of Wiman's current job, partly because of his astute insights and partly because he mixes poetry criticism with sometimes shocking memoir ... The collection's greatest strength comes in general ruminations on the writing, reading and judging poetry." —Publishers Weekly "[Wiman is] a terrific personal essayist, as this new collection illustrates, with the command and instincts of the popular memoirist ... This is a brave and bracing book." —Booklist “Blazing high style” is how The New York Times describes the prose of Christian Wiman, the young editor transforming Poetry, the country’s oldest literary magazine. Ambition and Survival is a collection of stirring personal essays and critical prose on a wide range of subjects: reading Milton in Guatemala, recalling violent episodes of his youth, and traveling in Africa with his eccentric father, as well as a series of penetrating essays on writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy and Janet Lewis. The book concludes with a portrait of Wiman’s diagnosis of a rare form of incurable and lethal cancer, and how mortality reignited his religious passions. When I was twenty years old I set out to be a poet. That sounds like I was a sort of frigate raising anchor, and in a way I guess I was, though susceptible to the lightest of winds. . . . When I read Samuel Johnson’s comment that any young man could compensate for his poor education by reading five hours a day for five years, that’s exactly what I tried to do, practically setting a timer every afternoon to let me know when the little egg of my brain was boiled. It’s a small miracle that I didn’t take to wearing a cape. Christian Wiman is the editor of Poetry magazine. His poems and essays appear regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and The New York Times Book Review.


Book Synopsis Ambition and Survival by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book Ambition and Survival written by Christian Wiman and published by Copper Canyon Press. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "That calling, at once religious, ethical, and aesthetic, is one that only a genuine poet can hear—and very few poets can explain it as compellingly as Mr. Wiman does. That gift is what makes Ambition and Survival, not just one of the best books of poetry criticism in a generation, but a spiritual memoir of the first order." —New York Sun "This weighty first prose collection should inspire wide attention, partly because of Wiman's current job, partly because of his astute insights and partly because he mixes poetry criticism with sometimes shocking memoir ... The collection's greatest strength comes in general ruminations on the writing, reading and judging poetry." —Publishers Weekly "[Wiman is] a terrific personal essayist, as this new collection illustrates, with the command and instincts of the popular memoirist ... This is a brave and bracing book." —Booklist “Blazing high style” is how The New York Times describes the prose of Christian Wiman, the young editor transforming Poetry, the country’s oldest literary magazine. Ambition and Survival is a collection of stirring personal essays and critical prose on a wide range of subjects: reading Milton in Guatemala, recalling violent episodes of his youth, and traveling in Africa with his eccentric father, as well as a series of penetrating essays on writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy and Janet Lewis. The book concludes with a portrait of Wiman’s diagnosis of a rare form of incurable and lethal cancer, and how mortality reignited his religious passions. When I was twenty years old I set out to be a poet. That sounds like I was a sort of frigate raising anchor, and in a way I guess I was, though susceptible to the lightest of winds. . . . When I read Samuel Johnson’s comment that any young man could compensate for his poor education by reading five hours a day for five years, that’s exactly what I tried to do, practically setting a timer every afternoon to let me know when the little egg of my brain was boiled. It’s a small miracle that I didn’t take to wearing a cape. Christian Wiman is the editor of Poetry magazine. His poems and essays appear regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and The New York Times Book Review.


Every Riven Thing

Every Riven Thing

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2014-08-12

Total Pages: 79

ISBN-13: 1466878223

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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.


Book Synopsis Every Riven Thing by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book Every Riven Thing written by Christian Wiman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.


Inventing God

Inventing God

Author: Jon Mills

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-22

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1317218442

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In this controversial book, philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills argues that God does not exist; and more provocatively, that God cannot exist as anything but an idea. Put concisely, God is a psychological creation signifying ultimate ideality. Mills argues that the idea or conception of God is the manifestation of humanity’s denial and response to natural deprivation; a self-relation to an internalized idealized object, the idealization of imagined value. After demonstrating the lack of any empirical evidence and the logical impossibility of God, Mills explains the psychological motivations underlying humanity’s need to invent a supreme being. In a highly nuanced analysis of unconscious processes informing the psychology of belief and institutionalized social ideology, he concludes that belief in God is the failure to accept our impending death and mourn natural absence for the delusion of divine presence. As an alternative to theistic faith, he offers a secular spirituality that emphasizes the quality of lived experience, the primacy of feeling and value inquiry, ethical self-consciousness, aesthetic and ecological sensibility, and authentic relationality toward self, other, and world as the pursuit of a beautiful soul in search of the numinous. Inventing God will be of interest to academics, scholars, lay audiences and students of religious studies, the humanities, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, among other disciplines. It will also appeal to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and mental health professionals focusing on the integration of humanities and psychoanalysis.


Book Synopsis Inventing God by : Jon Mills

Download or read book Inventing God written by Jon Mills and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-22 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this controversial book, philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills argues that God does not exist; and more provocatively, that God cannot exist as anything but an idea. Put concisely, God is a psychological creation signifying ultimate ideality. Mills argues that the idea or conception of God is the manifestation of humanity’s denial and response to natural deprivation; a self-relation to an internalized idealized object, the idealization of imagined value. After demonstrating the lack of any empirical evidence and the logical impossibility of God, Mills explains the psychological motivations underlying humanity’s need to invent a supreme being. In a highly nuanced analysis of unconscious processes informing the psychology of belief and institutionalized social ideology, he concludes that belief in God is the failure to accept our impending death and mourn natural absence for the delusion of divine presence. As an alternative to theistic faith, he offers a secular spirituality that emphasizes the quality of lived experience, the primacy of feeling and value inquiry, ethical self-consciousness, aesthetic and ecological sensibility, and authentic relationality toward self, other, and world as the pursuit of a beautiful soul in search of the numinous. Inventing God will be of interest to academics, scholars, lay audiences and students of religious studies, the humanities, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, among other disciplines. It will also appeal to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and mental health professionals focusing on the integration of humanities and psychoanalysis.


Once in the West

Once in the West

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2014-09-09

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 0374713545

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One of The New York Times' 10 Favorite Poetry Books of 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A searing new collection from one of our country's most important poets Memories mercies mostly aren't but there were I swear days veined with grace —from "Memory's Mercies" Once in the West, Christian Wiman's fourth collection, is as intense and intimate as poetry gets—from the "suffering of primal silence" that it plumbs to the "rockshriek of joy" that it achieves and enables. Readers of Wiman's earlier books will recognize the sharp characterizations and humor—"From her I learned the earthworm's exemplary open-mindedness, / its engine of discriminate shit"—as well as his particular brand of reverent rage: "Lord if I implore you please just please leave me alone / is that a prayer that's every instant answered?" But there is something new here, too: moving love poems to his wife, tender glimpses of his children, and, amid the onslaughts of illness and fear and failures, "a trace / of peace."


Book Synopsis Once in the West by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book Once in the West written by Christian Wiman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of The New York Times' 10 Favorite Poetry Books of 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A searing new collection from one of our country's most important poets Memories mercies mostly aren't but there were I swear days veined with grace —from "Memory's Mercies" Once in the West, Christian Wiman's fourth collection, is as intense and intimate as poetry gets—from the "suffering of primal silence" that it plumbs to the "rockshriek of joy" that it achieves and enables. Readers of Wiman's earlier books will recognize the sharp characterizations and humor—"From her I learned the earthworm's exemplary open-mindedness, / its engine of discriminate shit"—as well as his particular brand of reverent rage: "Lord if I implore you please just please leave me alone / is that a prayer that's every instant answered?" But there is something new here, too: moving love poems to his wife, tender glimpses of his children, and, amid the onslaughts of illness and fear and failures, "a trace / of peace."


Hammer Is the Prayer

Hammer Is the Prayer

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-11-15

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0374167745

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"The selected poems of American poet Christian Wiman"--


Book Synopsis Hammer Is the Prayer by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book Hammer Is the Prayer written by Christian Wiman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The selected poems of American poet Christian Wiman"--


Ooga-Booga

Ooga-Booga

Author: Frederick Seidel

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2014-09-02

Total Pages: 116

ISBN-13: 1466879785

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From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire. Here I am, not a practical man, But clear-eyed in my contact lenses, Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others, Seeking sexual pleasure above all else, Despairing of art and of life, Seeking protection from death by seeking it On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels . . . --from "The Death of the Shah" The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from Frederick Seidel, "the most frightening American poet ever" (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review).


Book Synopsis Ooga-Booga by : Frederick Seidel

Download or read book Ooga-Booga written by Frederick Seidel and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire. Here I am, not a practical man, But clear-eyed in my contact lenses, Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others, Seeking sexual pleasure above all else, Despairing of art and of life, Seeking protection from death by seeking it On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels . . . --from "The Death of the Shah" The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from Frederick Seidel, "the most frightening American poet ever" (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review).


Joy

Joy

Author: Christian Wiman

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 030022608X

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One hundred of the most evocative modern poems on joy, selected by an award-winning contemporary poet "Bursting with energy and surprising locutions. . . . Even the most familiar poets seem somehow new within the context of Joy."--David Skeel, Wall Street Journal "Wiman takes readers through the ostensible ordinariness of life and reveals the extraordinary."--Adrianna Smith, The Atlantic Christian Wiman, a poet known for his meditations on mortality, has long been fascinated by joy and by its relative absence in modern literature. Why is joy so resistant to language? How has it become so suspect in our times? Manipulated by advertisers, religious leaders, and politicians, joy can seem disquieting, even offensive. How does one speak of joy amid such ubiquitous injustice and suffering in the world? In this revelatory anthology, Wiman takes readers on a profound and surprising journey through some of the most underexplored terrain in contemporary life. Rather than define joy for readers, he wants them to experience it. Ranging from Emily Dickinson to Mahmoud Darwish and from Sylvia Plath to Wendell Berry, he brings together diverse and provocative works as a kind of counter to the old, modernist maxim "light writes white"--no agony, no art. His rich selections awaken us to the essential role joy plays in human life.


Book Synopsis Joy by : Christian Wiman

Download or read book Joy written by Christian Wiman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hundred of the most evocative modern poems on joy, selected by an award-winning contemporary poet "Bursting with energy and surprising locutions. . . . Even the most familiar poets seem somehow new within the context of Joy."--David Skeel, Wall Street Journal "Wiman takes readers through the ostensible ordinariness of life and reveals the extraordinary."--Adrianna Smith, The Atlantic Christian Wiman, a poet known for his meditations on mortality, has long been fascinated by joy and by its relative absence in modern literature. Why is joy so resistant to language? How has it become so suspect in our times? Manipulated by advertisers, religious leaders, and politicians, joy can seem disquieting, even offensive. How does one speak of joy amid such ubiquitous injustice and suffering in the world? In this revelatory anthology, Wiman takes readers on a profound and surprising journey through some of the most underexplored terrain in contemporary life. Rather than define joy for readers, he wants them to experience it. Ranging from Emily Dickinson to Mahmoud Darwish and from Sylvia Plath to Wendell Berry, he brings together diverse and provocative works as a kind of counter to the old, modernist maxim "light writes white"--no agony, no art. His rich selections awaken us to the essential role joy plays in human life.