Simple Weight

by Tania Runyan

2010 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize Finalist. With consummate skill, subtle and exacting artistry, and fierce passion, Tania Runyan's first collection, Simple Weight, brilliantly unveils the mysterious ties tethering heaven to earth [and] explores the painful and troubling journeys of a soul in search of the divine.... Hers is a voice brimming with a palpable humanity and beautiful pathos--complex, wise, mutable, and wholly original. --Maurya Simon, author of The Raindrop's Gospel __________ Spiritual without being in the least bit preachy, Runyan deals in matters of the heart, letting us experience the ineffable through a variety of subjects, often commonplace a dead goldfish, a broken dishwasher, dust mites.... Runyan uses deeply infused language "I chew the name God, God like habitual / gum." God, "the holy / singularity." "God who buries // his miracles in the soil." [These] poems have weight--emotional, spiritual, political--but are anything but simple. --Barbara Crooker, author of Radiance, Line Dance, and More __________ Tania Runyan claims she does not concern herself with things too marvelous for her. Well, she's lying. Simple Weight ponders and illuminates cicadas emerging from the earth and martyrs merging their bones with dust. In Runyan's world--which is our world--the human intrudes upon the holy, making it more holy still. These poems, like the Psalms themselves, will fall through the years "like a muscle of water." Drink deeply. --Paul Willis, author of Rosing From the Poems

Genres: Poetry

74 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2010

About the author

Tania Runyan is the author of several poetry collections, including What Will Soon Take Place, Second Sky, and A Thousand Vessels. Her first book-length creative nonfiction title, Making Peace With Paradise: An Autobiography of a California Girl, was released in 2022. Tania’s instructional guides, How to Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, and How to Write a Form Poem, are used in classrooms across the country, and her poems have appeared in publications such as Poetry, Image, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and The Christian Century. Tania was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2011. She lives with her family in Illinois, where she teaches sixth grade language arts.

Reviews

[Riley Morsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I happened upon this book because I read a few of Tania's recent poems published by The Rabbit Room and decided to look up her work. I can't explain how grateful I am that this 14-year-old collection of poems found me when it did. As a mother of toddlers, I loved the poems that touched on this very season. "Tantrum" was a favorite. Overall, I simply adore the way that Tania weaves spiritual wrestling, biblical curiosity, and just plain wonder at the beauty of this world. I can't wait to put this book into the hands of many friends.

[FutureCycle Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the publisher, so all of our authors get five stars from us. Excerpts:


THE GOLDFISH POND

I like the dead one best,
my daughter says,

and follows a corpse
the length of her smallest finger
around the edge of the pond.

Among the water lilies
a dozen fish flicker and spark.
Look how pretty, I say.

But she is lost now,
bending so low
her nose almost touches
the scales.

He keeps looking at me.
I love him.

And she reaches into her face.


BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT

I am not made to pray. I close my eyes
and float among the spots behind my lids.
I chew the name God, God, like habitual
gum, think about dusting the shelves, then sleep.

It is hard to speak to the capital LORD
who deals in mountains and seas, not in a woman
rewashing her mildewed laundry while scolding
her toddler through gritted teeth. I should

escape to the closet and kneel to the holy
singularity who blasted my cells from a star.
I should imagine the blood soaking
into the cross’s grain, plead forgiveness

for splintering my child’s soul. But the words
never find their way out of the dark.
Choirs and candles shine in his bones
while I doze at the door of his body.

[Ruth Chatlien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is one that I wanted to take my time with. I think of Tania Runyan as a modern Christian contemplative. Some of the poems give a contemporary slant on the beatitudes. Others provide a fresh look at biblical characters. And many just recount quiet moments of insight in the midst of the overwhelming details of life.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read much poetry, but this caught my eye in a library display. The author lives in my town and I met her once briefly. A couple of the poems really resonated with me. I'm sure many more went over my head. Some very beautiful thoughts.

[Jeremy Mifsud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated 3/5 - I liked it.

This was a solid collection. Well-use of imagery (very vivid & natural). Too on-the-nose Christianity-- I don't mind spirituality, but too many attempts at writing from perspective of a biblical persona, oftentimes forced.

I left a full-review on my site: https://poetrybyjeremy.wordpress.com/...

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern poetry is so much more effective when delivered in the poet's voice than when read on the page.

[Matt Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're like me, you see the Beatitudes as more of a rubric than an impossibility no one was meant to pursue. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. The poems in Simple Weight nest in the difficulty and give it arms, legs, and, in some cases, branches or wings. If you are the sort of soul who still attempts some sort of Bible reading in the morning, like I am, I'd recommend pairing your passage of choice with a poem a day from this collection. Whether you're encountering Mary, Esau, or your neighbors, you will do so with new eyes, and maybe even, I dare hope, a sense of wonder.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful imagery. Compelling prose. I particularly liked My Daughter's Hair, 2086: Notes for my daughter's Nurse, and Blessed Are the Reviled.