Mandelstam is the sort of poet who comes along very, very rarely. Even the two Russian poets whose work is often linked with his - Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva - though their work is more "urgent" than most American… — Christian Wiman Copy Share Image
I can't think offhand of any American poets who have Mandelstam's urgency, but it's a different country and a different time, and I don't think it would make much sense to say that this is something that's "missing" from contemporary… — Christian Wiman Copy Share Image
I find myself continually falling back into wounds, wishes, terrors I thought I had risen beyond. — Christian Wiman Copy Share
“Intellectuals and artists concerned with faith tend to underestimate the radical, inviolable innocence it requires. We read and read, write long, elaborate essays and… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
We should be suspicious when God's call conforms so neatly to our own inclinations. — Christian Wiman Copy Share
“Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
To be truly alive is to feel one's ultimate existence within one's daily existence. — Christian Wiman Copy Share
I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God,… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
Mandelstam is the sort of poet who comes along very, very rarely. Even the two Russian poets whose work is often linked with his… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
“How many loves fail because, in an unconscious effort to make our weaknesses more strong, we link with others precisely at those points? How… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
“It is a strange thing how sometimes merely to talk honestly of God, even if it is only to articulate our feelings of separation… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
“Faith cannot save you from the claims of reason, except insofar as it preserves and protects that wonderful, terrible time when reason, if only… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
“part of my enjoyment of life had always been an unconscious assumption of its continuity. Not necessarily a continuity of reality itself—the moment does… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
I suppose I do believe that the greatest art consoles a wound that it creates, that art can give you the capacity to endure… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us, whether as explanations for a life that never quite… — Christian Wiman Copy Share
