Paper Cathedrals

Wick First Book

by Morri Creech

Displaying a range of voices and subjects―from dramatic monologues in the voices of Judas Iscariot and John the Baptist to harrowing personal lyrics of family, time, memory, and loss―Creech’s poems examine the difficulties of belief and the transcendent possibilities of common experience, pushing beyond mere surfaces to explore the “kingdom of desire.” Paper Cathedrals confronts the tensions between the here and hereafter, gravity and grace, and religious faith and an allegiance to the passing, sensual world.

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

About the author

Morri Creech was born in Moncks Corner, S.C. in 1970 and was educated at Winthrop University and McNeese State University. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Paper Cathedrals (Kent State U P, 2001), Field Knowledge (Waywiser, 2006), which received the Anthony Hecht Poetry prize and was nominated for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Poet’s Prize, and The Sleep of Reason (forthcoming, Waywiser 2013). A recipient of NEA and Ruth Lilly Fellowships, as well as grants from the North Carolina and Louisana Arts councils, he is the Writer in Residence at Queens University of Charlotte, where he teaches courses in both the undergraduate creative writing program and in the low residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't this the man we loved and followed
who stood among the money changers,
stripped to the waist in rapturous violence?
And I watched as he fell upon them,
lashing his strap across bare flesh
of men and animals sacttering before him,
so that even the other disciples fled the temple,
and the Lord's body ripened painfully with the spirit
as he split the hard oak of the tables
and spilled the bright coins, strewing the sunlight
with doves that swirled fiercely among the rafters,
and when he turned and looked at me
I knew what I saw was miracle,
as the God inside him bent to his human will
and with savage grace laid hands upon the temple.

[Kirsten Kinnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved all of this, but most especially the sequence called “The Testament of Judas.” And I’m going to disagree with a reviewer above: as a practicing Catholic, poetry (or other art) that confronts doubt and the other complications of faith does not in any way offend me. In fact, I think it is vital. These are worth a read.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morri Creech, Paper Cathedrals (Kent State University, 2001)

Morri Creech's Paper Cathedrals is a deeply spiritual book of poems, but Orthodox Christians need not apply; this is the language of doubt, of turning away.

“Though I still grip the pew at the closing hymn
and know the short walk down the aisle
to the everlasting, I have yet to feel
the swell and stir of mercy, the urgent touch,
the laying on of hands. And at night
I kneel over the difficult words,
Our father who art in Heaven,
rehearsed since childhood.”
(“Prayer for My Living Father”)

Doubt indeed, but it is impossible to deny the beauty of Creech's almost obsessively thematic poems (most every poem for or about Creech's father, for example, tarries over engines and tools with which to work on them, while the religious poems spend a great deal of time considering the plight of Judas). This is excellent writing, laden with image and feeling so intertwined with one another that it is often impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. This one will almost certainly be on my list of the 25 best books I read in 2009. Pick it up at your earliest convenience and revel in the language. ****

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant poetry--one of the best books I've ever read!

Gorgeously lyric-narrative. Stunning, stunning. From beginning to end.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say..we were really good friends in high school. I'm very proud of him...way to go Morri!

[Christine Rodríguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such beauty, the kind that will make you cry with its sublime language and emotion.