What do you think?
Rate this book
The Holy Spirit of Life: Essays Written for John Ashcroft's Secret Self
The bold and surprising imagination of Joe Wenderoth is everywhere present in these essays moving fluidly between aesthetics, obscenity, America, censorship, and the craft of poetry. Fans of his previous work know he is one of those rare figures who travels between pop culture, poetry, and cultural critique, and all will be thrilled to find his uncompromising and inimitable sensibility on brilliant display. Joe Wenderoth grew up near Baltimore. His books include the novel Letters To Wendy’s (Verse Press, 2000) and the poetry collections It Is If I Speak and Disfortune (Wesleyan, 2000, 1995). A Proposal is forthcoming from Verse Press. He teaches at the University of California Davis, where he lives with his wife and daughter.
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2005
41 people want to read
About the author
Joe Wenderoth
16 books30 followersJoe Wenderoth grew up near Baltimore. He is the author of No Real Light (Wave Books, 2007), The Holy Spirit of Life: Essays Written for John Ashcroft's Secret Self (Verse Press 2005) and Letters to Wendy's (Verse Press 2000). Wesleyan University Press published his first two books of poems: Disfortune (1995) and It Is If I Speak (2000). He is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Davis.
For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/46-...
For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/46-...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 15, 2022
“… The poetic speaker stands in a uniquely impotent relation to the loved scene. Instead of residing in the power to make her way through the world, the poets’ power is shifted toward the power to stand in, to stand with, the real world, which no longer offers a through…these powers erode each other constantly”
July 18, 2008
I think Joe Wenderoth's existence in academia oppresses him. I think that there are impartial emotions in the straight-ahead essays in this book that make them irrelevant/unconsumable. I read them after reading Barthes, and it was . . . difficult. I really do think that he wrote them drunk.
However, I do think that the pieces in this book that are performance art--that are illocutionary, that are doing something--are (nearly) as brilliant as anything in Letters to Wendy's, and have all the magic blasphemy and ecstatic (if pubescent) abjection that make Wenderoth one of my favorites. For instance, he publishes a letter from American Poet soliciting work from him on a theme of irreverence. Then, he publishes a letter from them in which they try to work out how to censor the poem he gives them, which is about, among other things, the "filthy cunt" of Jesus. (They ultimately reject it.)
Or take the Swiftian bit in which he suggests that all past and future images of MLK be made white, since the meaning of his life has been so recuperated and canonized by white people as to become meaningless to them.
Plus, the pieces have good titles. Like "The Lumberjack's Melancholy Pussy," and "Response to the Disciplinary Action Taken Against Me by the Human Resource Manager."
Still, I think he is best when he has a specific task in mind, or at least a unifying urge. And isn't writing academic analysis. And isn't drunk.
However, I do think that the pieces in this book that are performance art--that are illocutionary, that are doing something--are (nearly) as brilliant as anything in Letters to Wendy's, and have all the magic blasphemy and ecstatic (if pubescent) abjection that make Wenderoth one of my favorites. For instance, he publishes a letter from American Poet soliciting work from him on a theme of irreverence. Then, he publishes a letter from them in which they try to work out how to censor the poem he gives them, which is about, among other things, the "filthy cunt" of Jesus. (They ultimately reject it.)
Or take the Swiftian bit in which he suggests that all past and future images of MLK be made white, since the meaning of his life has been so recuperated and canonized by white people as to become meaningless to them.
Plus, the pieces have good titles. Like "The Lumberjack's Melancholy Pussy," and "Response to the Disciplinary Action Taken Against Me by the Human Resource Manager."
Still, I think he is best when he has a specific task in mind, or at least a unifying urge. And isn't writing academic analysis. And isn't drunk.
April 13, 2009
Terrific inventive stuff. Wenderoth blends an often naive voice with a dazzling, illuminating perceptiveness about what is normally hidden in the assumptions of American life. Essays on the Andy Griffith Show, campus Christians, and the Road Runner are astonishing.
July 11, 2007
Just never got into it.
July 30, 2007
"(The) unthinking, unmoving coyote, successfully alone with his desired object, is never the subject of the cartoon, and we must be grateful for that."
December 9, 2007
The essay about jesus having a vagina, shocked me, and I do not shock. It made me laugh too.
May 27, 2009
Though I don't think every essay worked, the ones that did, especially the one on MLK are enough for me to give it full marks
December 3, 2013
Nice essays though I (strongly) prefer Wonderoth's poetry.
September 14, 2015
Good essays mixed with wickedly funny prose
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews