Christian Wiman is the author, editor, or translator of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including two memoirs, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer and He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art; Every Riven Thing, winner of the Ambassador Book Award; Once in the West, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and Survival Is a Style-all published by FSG. He teaches religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and at Yale Divinity School.
Named a Best Book of 2023 by Shelf Awareness "Wiman offers a
welcome tonic: poetic and philosophical reminders of how to get
through troubling times. . . Wiman could charm an atheist out of a
tree . . . [Zero at the Bone is] a profane, irreverent,
freewheeling and necessary book. Readers of whatever creed will be
jolted to lift their heads from their screens and turn them to the
unfathomable heavens." --Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times
(Editor's Choice) "Wiman is among the most distinguished Christian
writers of his generation . . . Now he hopes that his experimental
book--part poetry anthology, part memoir, part theological
treatise--can help others live . . . The rewards for readers are
immense and renewable . . . Word by word, Wiman resuscitates
ancient ideas, from being to spirit, leaving our faces pressed
hopefully against the here-and-now window of the poem." --Casey
Cep, The New Yorker "Christian Wiman [is] the greatest living
devotional poet in the United States . . . Few poets, much less
essayists, have been so enraptured with the subject of living with
death as has Wiman, who has stared into the abyss and been
transformed--though, fortunately, not into the abyss itself . . .
[Zero at the Bone] exists in that uncomfortable but undeniable
certainty that creation is imbued with sublime pain and awful
beauty." --Ed Simon, Poetry
"[In Zero at the Bone] Wiman has discovered a new . . . form, one
that embodies the abstractions of faith and finds music for the
soul's yearnings." --Anthony Domestico, The Washington Post "The
best poems show a mind at work; apparently the best theological
essays do the same . . . Zero at the Bone is a humbly honest but
daring invitation to put aside our lonely despair to seek truth
with Wiman and a hundred other fallible, fumbling, loveable
writers." --Whitney Rio-Ross, Fare Forward "Zero at the Bone
combines each of [Wiman's] talents to produce something familiar
and yet strangely new . . . Zero at the Bone is philharmonic. The
entries play and peal like strings, woodwinds, percussion, but they
work together, enhance each other such that while individual
entries ebb and flow, the book itself crescendos into syncopated
antiphony . . . a polyphonic masterpiece . . . a work of art."
--Nathan M. Antiel, First Things "A spiritual marvel . . .
provocative and delightful." --Aarik Danielsen, Englewood Review of
Books "An exuberant tribute to both poetry and faith, which Wiman
contends can help us not only survive crisis but also find awe
within its clutches." --Maggie Millner, The Yale Review "Zero at
the Bone would be a strong competitor among my picks for a
'marooned on a desert island' reading club' . . . a deeply
thoughtful, multi-layered exploration of the nature of despair--its
origins, relationship to faith, and how we live in its enduring
presence . . . The result is an exhilarating, confounding,
comforting, and surprisingly fresh intellectual journey." --Ann
Leamon, Arts Fuse "[Zero at the Bone] is a dizzying book--at
alternate points turbulent, psalm-like, revelatory--and altogether
strangely uplifting. It is like nothing else I have read."--Josh
Jeter, Christianity Today "Consider . . . Wiman's great editorial
talent, the range of his reading, his curatorial gift for creating
a literary conversation, the depth of his grief and suffering, his
plucky gifts as a writer. Smelt them into a single alloy, and you
might have something that looks like his latest book, Zero at the
Bone . . . Wiman's religious vision [is] challenging and
necessary." --Nick Ripatrazone, The Bulwark "The shift in forms and
tone throughout this incandescent mosaic keeps the reader alert and
curious; each piece is an adventure, provocation, meditation,
lesson, or attempted proof. A passionate literary religious thinker
in the mode of Marilynne Robinson, Wiman is magnetizing and
revelatory." --Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review) "Wiman
weaves together poetry, essay, and memoir in this dazzling,
multivocal examination of and refusal to accept existential despair
. . . Wiman's knowledge is vast, and his evocative imagery lingers
in the mind . . . [Zero at the Bone is] a gorgeous ode to the power
of poetry to grapple with life's most anguished moments."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "If there is one word to
describe this beautiful and unsparing book, it is 'truthful':
Christian Wiman interrogates pain, joy and God with a rare depth of
honesty and a wonderful range of conversational partners, literary,
mystical, scientific and more." --Archbishop Rowan Williams "Over
the years, readers have thrilled to Christian Wiman in his many
avatars: master poet, illuminating literary critic, essayist,
memoirist, anthologist. All of these urgent, intense Wimans work
together here on a theme uniquely suited to his experiences and his
'ninja blender of a mind.' But this book is far more than just a
collection of his readings and sufferings. It is a book, most
memorably, of his enthusiasms, his volatile revelations, his
hard-won joys. These fifty 'entries on despair' open on
infinitudes. The most quintessentially Wiman of all his books so
far, Zero at the Bone is astringently, transcendently human."
--Amit Majmudar, author of Black Avatar: And Other Essays
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