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
It is easy enough to write and talk about God while remaining comfortable within the contemporary intellectual climate. Even people who would call themselves unbelievers often use the word gesturally, as a ready-made synonym for mystery. But if nature abhors… — 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 Image
“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 Image
We should be suspicious when God's call conforms so neatly to our own inclinations. — Christian Wiman Copy Share Image
“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 Image
To be truly alive is to feel one's ultimate existence within one's daily existence. — Christian Wiman Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
