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, the author of My Bright Abyss and an
award-winning poet, 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, framed by two more, 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 more 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 up the mantle of our greatest mystics and does so with an
honest, profound, and contemporary sensibility. Zero at the Bone is a
revelation.
