Relics
By Poetry Issue 109
Everyone in the family insists / the bones are ours. Nurses fuss and refuse at first, / / until we threaten a lawyer.
Read MoreHow Else Would God Enter?
By Book Review Issue 55
The Corpse Flower: New & Selected Poems by Bruce Beasley (University of Washington Press, 2007) Mary’s House: New & Selected Poems by David Craig (Idylls Press, 2007) Some Heaven by Todd Davis (Michigan State University Press, 2007) Apropos of Nothing by Richard Jones (Copper Canyon Press, 2006) IS THERE a contemporary Christian poetic aesthetic? This question came…
Read MoreMidrash
By Poetry Issue 69
And the heart of man is a green leaf: God twists its stem and it withers. ______________________________—Nikos Kazantzakis At first the hunger in his belly did not burn, nor did it lie at the bottom with the heaviness of stone. It was like iron hammered flat, like the dull edge of a knife pushed against…
Read MoreHomily
By Poetry Issue 79
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of the Soul, O I say now these are the Soul! —Walt Whitman By the second week in September nuthatches capture the last elderberries, excrement purpled and extravagant, sprayed drunkenly across my truck’s hood. I’ve been thinking about the God…
Read MoreIn a Dream William Stafford Visits Me
By Poetry Issue 79
He is walking across a field of wheat in Kansas, grain as tall as his shoulder and as tan as his face. He is cupping his hands to his mouth, shouting words the wind steals and throws into the air like chaff. I need to know what he’s said and begin chasing his voice as…
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