The Hanging God by James Matthew Wilson

(Brooklyn: Angelico, 2018), 106

This is a beautiful collection of poems by my favorite living poet. I bought this initially to have a hard copy of Autumn Road, which resonates with me so much and I try to read each fall. I also love praying the The Stations of the Cross with his poetry (Stations VI, XI, and XIII are my favorite).

Some favorite lines:

"And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to him, even his own destruction." —Pascal (Penseés, Section VII, 425)
The Consolation of Oranges: "Atheists are those / Who, having looked at symbols spelled / In branching letters, scattered dust, / See only things, not what they mean." (9)
"What is a person without this? What is a person without a life-form, that is to say, without a form which he has chosen for his life, a form into which and through which to pour out his life, so that his life becomes the soul of the form and the form becomes the expression of his soul?" —Hans Urs von Balthasar
Stations of the Cross, XI: "For us, who keep our kitchens clean, / Who'd never have ourselves thought mean, / We had them drive the final nail." (63)
Autumn Road: "For what the rough voiced future will demand." (81)

Topic: Poems

Created: 2022-04-08-Fri
Updated: 2023-01-23-Mon