Christian Wiman
July 7, 2021: Union Springs Herald: Brokenness
The poet Christian Wiman wrote this line: "God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made." The word "riven" is an old-fashioned word that means to tear apart violently. In a similar vein the poet William Butler Yeats wrote: "nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent." The writer Ernest Hemingway wrote this line: "The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places."
The poet Christian Wiman wrote this line: "God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made." The word "riven" is an old-fashioned word that means to tear apart violently. In a similar vein the poet William Butler Yeats wrote: "nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent." The writer Ernest Hemingway wrote this line: "The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places."
Mar 24, 2015: Western Theological Seminary: A Poet & A Theologian Talk About Incurable Cancer
An Evening with Christian Wiman and Dr. J. Todd Billings
An Evening with Christian Wiman and Dr. J. Todd Billings
Oct 17, 2014: Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church: Christian Wiman’s Next Great Book
Christian Wiman's new volume of poetry, Once in the West, appeared in September, and the reviews suggest another triumph for FAPC's soon-to-be guest author.
Christian Wiman's new volume of poetry, Once in the West, appeared in September, and the reviews suggest another triumph for FAPC's soon-to-be guest author.
July 21, 2014: Commonweal: George Eliot, Thomas a Kempis, and Christian Wiman
And then came the other connected realization, for I had the book on the train with me as well, that Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss is a latter day a Kempis. (Wiman was interviewed by Commonweal in the May 2, 2014 issue.) “Meditation of a Modern Believer,” the book’s subtitle, indicates the focus and the intensity of the thought.
And then came the other connected realization, for I had the book on the train with me as well, that Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss is a latter day a Kempis. (Wiman was interviewed by Commonweal in the May 2, 2014 issue.) “Meditation of a Modern Believer,” the book’s subtitle, indicates the focus and the intensity of the thought.
Mar 25, 2014: Internet Monk: Christian Wiman: Religious Despair as Defense
During my weekend at Gethsemani, some of the most insightful reading I did came from Christian Wiman’s luminous book, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer.
During my weekend at Gethsemani, some of the most insightful reading I did came from Christian Wiman’s luminous book, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer.
Mar 24, 2014: Huffington Post: Review of Christian Wiman's 'My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer'
Wiman refuses to hector or preach down to anyone---be they believers, doubters, or atheists. He treats his readers like grown-ups. His purpose is speak clearly about what he believes.
Wiman refuses to hector or preach down to anyone---be they believers, doubters, or atheists. He treats his readers like grown-ups. His purpose is speak clearly about what he believes.
May 6, 2013: New Yorker: Faith Healing
A poet confronts illness and God
A poet confronts illness and God
Christian Wiman is an American poet and editor born in 1966 and raised in West Texas. He graduated from Washington and Lee University and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, Lynchburg College in Virginia, and the Prague School of Economics. In 2003, he became editor of the oldest American magazine of verse, Poetry, a role he stepped down from in June 2013. Wiman now teaches literature and religion at Yale Divinity School. His first book of poetry, The Long Home, (Copper Canyon Press, 1998) won the Nicholas Roerich Prize. His 2010 book, Every Riven Thing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), was chosen by poet and critic Dan Chiasson as one of the best poetry books of 2010. His book Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet (Copper Canyon Press, 2007) reviewed by The New York Times Sunday Book Review, is "a collection of personal essays and critical prose on a wide range of subjects: reading Paradise Lost in Guatemala, recalling violent episodes from the poet's youth, traveling in Africa with an eccentric father, as well as a series of penetrating essays on poets, poetry, and poetry's place in our lives. The book concludes with a portrait of Wiman's diagnosis with a rare cancer, and a clear-eyed declaration of what it means — for an artist and a person — to have faith in the face of death."
His poems, criticism, and personal essays appear widely in such magazines as The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, and The New Yorker. Clive James describes Wiman’s poems as being “insistent on being read aloud, in a way that so much from America is determined not to be. His rhymes and line-turnovers are all carefully placed to intensify the speech rhythms, making everything dramatic: not shoutingly so, but with a steady voice that tells an ideal story every time.
His poems, criticism, and personal essays appear widely in such magazines as The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, and The New Yorker. Clive James describes Wiman’s poems as being “insistent on being read aloud, in a way that so much from America is determined not to be. His rhymes and line-turnovers are all carefully placed to intensify the speech rhythms, making everything dramatic: not shoutingly so, but with a steady voice that tells an ideal story every time.
