Hammer Is the Prayer: Selected Poems

by Christian Wiman

A visionary selection from one of America’s foremost poets

One of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American poetry, Christian Wiman has forged a singular style that fuses a vivid and propulsive music with clear-eyed realism, wry humor, and visionary lament. In his “daring and urgent” ( The New York Times Book Review ) memoir, My Bright Abyss , he asks, “What is poetry’s role when the world is burning?” Hammer Is the Selected Poems might be read as an answer to that question.

From the taut forms of his first book to the darker, more jagged fluencies of his second, into the bold and pathbreaking poems of his last two collections, Hammer Is the Prayer bears the reckless, restless interrogations and the slashing lyric intensity that distinguish Wiman’s verse. But it also reveals the dramatic and narrative abilities for which he has been widely praised―the junkyard man in “Five Houses Down” with his “wonder-cluttered porch” and “the eyesore opulence / of his five partial cars,” or the tragicomic character in “Being Serious” who suffers “the world’s idiocy / like a saint its pains.”

Hammer Is the Prayer brings together three decades of Wiman’s acclaimed poetry. Selected by the author, these poems reveal the singular music and metaphysical urgency that have attracted so many readers to his work and firmly assert his place as one of the most essential poets of our time.

Genres: Poetry, Christian

224 pages, Hardcover

Published November 15, 2016

About the author

Christian Wiman is an American poet and editor born in 1966 and raised in West Texas. He graduated from Washington and Lee University and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, Lynchburg College in Virginia, and the Prague School of Economics. In 2003 he became editor of the oldest American magazine of verse, Poetry.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

And I said to my soul, be loud

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
How do you write compelling poetry about death, loss, and feelings of hopelessness? And how do you seamlessly include the themes of love, faith, and desire? You study and emulate Christian Wiman, that's how.
Christian Wiman's work is always honest, always urgent, and always powerful. In spite of his metaphysical leanings, his poetry is tempered by concreteness and reality. His theology and faith are central to his work, and he is not afraid to confront difficult or negative experiences and feelings related to these. The modern believer needs Christian Wiman.
His poems are often sentences of darkness, but they are always punctuated with, to borrow from Dickinson, "a certain slant of light." And in a world where evangelicals are usually regarded as less educated in the artistic and scholarly spheres, Wiman excels in his craft. He is, I believe, one of the most essential poets of our post-postmodern age.
If you are looking for a solid introduction to Wiman, or for a fine collection with samples of his anthologies, this is the book for you.

[Jitse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful! Mysterious, at times haunting, at times filled with desire. Best comprehended when you first read My Bright Abyss. Not everything is autobiographical of course, but at times it definitely seems to be the case.

[J. Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wiman's poems verge near the surreal and borrow from both the colloquial and technical sides of the language, but other than that he seems really difficult to categorize or explain. He doesn't shy away from rhyme, there's often something close to meter happening, and there's an almost Miltonic complexity of syntax that you have to rearrange verbally as you go, except that sometimes a sentence will merely become something other than what it was when it started out as if it had started again in midstream

Anyway if you're interested in poetry you should read him. "And I Said to My Soul, Be Loud" is the best attempt at a modern Psalm I can remember. "The Funeral" is a good simpler poem that will demonstrate the style (and it is, if anything in this book is, homage to an English language poet, so that helps your sense of direction).

And how about this for a single line to make you stop and renegotiate the written word:
"An engine of insects hummed in the cattails."

[Mitchell Capps · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved My Bright Abyss and then one day I heard his poem “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs” read on the radio and was very moved by it. I hadn’t known he did poetry so I ordered a collection.

I found it diminished as it went. Can’t tell if that was a problem with me or some organisational fluke. Since 2011 I’ve always kept a book of poems on me. This is the longest I’ve ever been reading one. Before this, Rilke’s Book of Images was also the longest I had ever been reading one.

I’m glad it’s still a part of my life even if it’s slow. Now on to another volume.

[Hailey Leithauser · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the very few books I give five stars to - Heartbreaking and beautifully crafted

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly 4 but much closer to 4 than 3
I really loved so many of these

[Emily Magnus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Christian Wiman so probably bias of bumping up the star power- but this was a collection that a lot of poems had me more ??? than !!!!. As always- all it takes is a few miraculous words stringed together to make you love poetry, I just think these words were more jumbled than others.

POTB: (From 2047 Grace Street)

But the world is more often refuge
than evidence, comfort and covert
for the flinching will, rather than the sharp
particulate instants through which God's being burns
into ours. I say God and mean more
than the bright abyss that opens in that word.
I say world and mean less
than the abstract oblivion of atoms
out of which every intact thing emerges,
into which every intact thing finally goes.
I do not know how to come closer to God
except by standing where a world is ending
for one man. It is still dark,
and for an hour I have listened
to the breathing of the woman I love beyond
my ability to love. Praise to the pain
scalding us toward each other, the grief
beyond which, please God, she will live
and thrive. And praise to the light that is not
yet, the dawn in which one bird believes,
crying not as if there had been no night
but as if there were no night in which it had not been.

[Dane Rich]

I can’t rate this because I don’t know anything about poetry. I didn’t understand half of these, but that’s because I’m a novice. I read through the second half fast, not trying to suck honey out of every one, but familiarizing myself with poetry and learning. There were several I really enjoyed and the ones I understood shook me. I go on now to read more poetry and to learn more. I hope to come back to this in future years and glean more.

[Hayley Rawnsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poetry collection is so hauntingly beautiful. Wiman's distinct word choices and literary devices convey such vivid images and emotions about grief and crisis of faith. I found myself resonating with many of the poems, admiring such honest words I have thought but never dared to say. I've borrowed this collection from the library a couple times and I think it's time to purchase it, I enjoyed it that much.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Won this book from Goodreads giveaways.

Unfortunately, this is not a collection of hymns to Thor, as might be imagined from the title.

But it is full of wistful grief-ridden nostalgia and powerful emotive imagery, which I am a sucker for.

I enjoyed this book very much and will seek out other poetry from this writer.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciated this collection! I kept returning to Sweet Nothing, Being Serious, the Preacher Addresses the Seminarians and Voice of One Head. I hope to come back and enjoy this collection again in the future, there's a lot more I have yet to savor.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

My God my grief forgive my grief tamed in language
to a fear that I can bear:
Make of my anguish
more than I can make. Lord, hear my prayer.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. An absolute grace.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

5* for approximately the first half, 3* for the second half. So glad I found this!

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite enjoyed. Great introduction to the work of Wiman, covering various books including translations of Mandelstam. Subject matter: God, or lack thereof and various working class stigmata

[Steven Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wiman is great and this is a nice collection of his works, but I prefer to read poems in their original collections. There's something more cohesive that way.

[Robert Van Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading 'My bright abyss' I discovered his p0etry. No 'easy read' and not religious in the traditional manner. Poems and language circling round, wrestling with life and God.

[Luke Gorham · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one does it better. Particularly fascinating as an encapsulation of the emotional states and artistic characters Wiman has flowed between across the past couple decades.

[RyanG37 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devestating: a descriptor much overused, but truly applicable here. I found myself torn apart by Wiman's words time and time again.

[Ben Palpant · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And I Was Alive" and "Every Riven a Thing" and "This Mind of Dying" are great (not simply good) poems.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea. I found it depressing flat and washed out. Just my personal reaction to the poems.

[Joseph Hamrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far. Haunting and harrowing and beautiful.