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Joy: 100 Poems
One hundred of the most evocative modern poems on joy, selected by an award-winning contemporary poet
“Bursting with energy and surprising locutions. . . . Even the most familiar poets seem somehow new within the context of Joy.”—David Skeel, Wall Street Journal “Wiman takes readers through the ostensible ordinariness of life and reveals the extraordinary.”—Adrianna Smith, The Atlantic
Christian Wiman, a poet known for his meditations on mortality, has long been fascinated by joy and by its relative absence in modern literature. Why is joy so resistant to language? How has it become so suspect in our times? Manipulated by advertisers, religious leaders, and politicians, joy can seem disquieting, even offensive. How does one speak of joy amid such ubiquitous injustice and suffering in the world?
In this revelatory anthology, Wiman takes readers on a profound and surprising journey through some of the most underexplored terrain in contemporary life. Rather than define joy for readers, he wants them to experience it. Ranging from Emily Dickinson to Mahmoud Darwish and from Sylvia Plath to Wendell Berry, he brings together diverse and provocative works as a kind of counter to the old, modernist maxim “light writes white”— no agony, no art . His rich selections awaken us to the essential role joy plays in human life.
“Bursting with energy and surprising locutions. . . . Even the most familiar poets seem somehow new within the context of Joy.”—David Skeel, Wall Street Journal “Wiman takes readers through the ostensible ordinariness of life and reveals the extraordinary.”—Adrianna Smith, The Atlantic
Christian Wiman, a poet known for his meditations on mortality, has long been fascinated by joy and by its relative absence in modern literature. Why is joy so resistant to language? How has it become so suspect in our times? Manipulated by advertisers, religious leaders, and politicians, joy can seem disquieting, even offensive. How does one speak of joy amid such ubiquitous injustice and suffering in the world?
In this revelatory anthology, Wiman takes readers on a profound and surprising journey through some of the most underexplored terrain in contemporary life. Rather than define joy for readers, he wants them to experience it. Ranging from Emily Dickinson to Mahmoud Darwish and from Sylvia Plath to Wendell Berry, he brings together diverse and provocative works as a kind of counter to the old, modernist maxim “light writes white”— no agony, no art . His rich selections awaken us to the essential role joy plays in human life.
173 pages, Hardcover
Published November 7, 2017
55 people are currently reading
900 people want to read
About the author
Christian Wiman
145 books324 followersChristian 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
September 30, 2019
Christian Wiman, a poet and professor at Yale University, decided to “explore what joy means for poets at this moment in history.”
He set out to discover 100 poems and passages that reflect a modern understanding of joy, in an attempt to answer such questions as. . . What is joy? When do we feel it? How can we experience more of it?
He writes, in “A Note on the Selections” that Ezra Pound once assured us that poets are the “antennae of the race,” and he is heartened in that sentiment, as he believes “this anthology bears it out—that some unconscious effort at recovery is taking place.”
So, one hundred poems and several prose-by-poets selections on joy later. . . what can I say I have learned about the subject?
Well. . . I have learned that joy is ephemeral. It is most often a fleeting state, more similar to sorrow than general contentment.
I have learned that we all seek it, most often in communion with Spirit, but very often in a climax, too. (And did you know how many people experience a true sense of joy as they are urinating??)
I have learned that most of us want joy, but we're also afraid of finding too much of it. We often feel that we want to hide our joy, rather than share it. Wipe that smile off our face before somebody else discovers that the guy behind the counter accidentally gave us a second scoop.
This is a thoughtful book, one that would be best suited for a contemplative reader. It is not a simple pick-me-up for that special person in your life who's a bit down on their luck. This compilation is filled with some of our best modern poetry, from around the world, and it introduced me to three new-to-me poets: Li-Young Lee, Donald Hall and Grace Paley. (All three of their independent collections are currently en route to me!).
I meant for this to be a “background book” as I was in the process of reading two other novels, but, to be honest, the collection kept shouldering its way back to center stage. I didn't want it to come to an end. I guess you could almost say it made me. . . joyful.
I pick the children up at the bottom of the mountain where the orange bus lets them off in the wind. They run for the car like leaves blowing. Not for keeps, to be sure, but at least for the time being, the world has given them back again, and whatever the world chooses to do later on, it can never so much as lay a hand on the having-beenness of this time. The past is inviolate. We are none of us safe, but everything that has happened is safe. In all the vast and empty reaches of the universe it can never be otherwise than that when the orange bus stopped with its red lights blinking, these two children were on it. Their noses were running. One of them dropped a sweater. I drove them home.
--Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace
He set out to discover 100 poems and passages that reflect a modern understanding of joy, in an attempt to answer such questions as. . . What is joy? When do we feel it? How can we experience more of it?
He writes, in “A Note on the Selections” that Ezra Pound once assured us that poets are the “antennae of the race,” and he is heartened in that sentiment, as he believes “this anthology bears it out—that some unconscious effort at recovery is taking place.”
So, one hundred poems and several prose-by-poets selections on joy later. . . what can I say I have learned about the subject?
Well. . . I have learned that joy is ephemeral. It is most often a fleeting state, more similar to sorrow than general contentment.
I have learned that we all seek it, most often in communion with Spirit, but very often in a climax, too. (And did you know how many people experience a true sense of joy as they are urinating??)
I have learned that most of us want joy, but we're also afraid of finding too much of it. We often feel that we want to hide our joy, rather than share it. Wipe that smile off our face before somebody else discovers that the guy behind the counter accidentally gave us a second scoop.
This is a thoughtful book, one that would be best suited for a contemplative reader. It is not a simple pick-me-up for that special person in your life who's a bit down on their luck. This compilation is filled with some of our best modern poetry, from around the world, and it introduced me to three new-to-me poets: Li-Young Lee, Donald Hall and Grace Paley. (All three of their independent collections are currently en route to me!).
I meant for this to be a “background book” as I was in the process of reading two other novels, but, to be honest, the collection kept shouldering its way back to center stage. I didn't want it to come to an end. I guess you could almost say it made me. . . joyful.
I pick the children up at the bottom of the mountain where the orange bus lets them off in the wind. They run for the car like leaves blowing. Not for keeps, to be sure, but at least for the time being, the world has given them back again, and whatever the world chooses to do later on, it can never so much as lay a hand on the having-beenness of this time. The past is inviolate. We are none of us safe, but everything that has happened is safe. In all the vast and empty reaches of the universe it can never be otherwise than that when the orange bus stopped with its red lights blinking, these two children were on it. Their noses were running. One of them dropped a sweater. I drove them home.
--Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace
March 29, 2025
The introductory essay on joy is one of the best things I’ve read on the topic. The collection itself is a 4/5 in terms of gut-level resonance, confirming my sense that my poetic sensibilities are on a slightly different wavelength than Wiman’s. But a brilliant anthology all the same…and that introduction…
January 5, 2018
Joy? One might blanch at the thought of poems on a subject that seems frivolous in the face of such suffering in the world. That’s understandable. The author himself is no stranger to personal suffering. That story is told in his memoir “My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer.” Here he takes up a bold exposition of joy through a selection of 100 poems collected from an array of poets. Along the way he admits joy is “that tired word … used to peddle soap and salvation, the word requires some rehabilitation.” What a beautiful work Wiman has done in rehabilitating joy as the perfect response to world of pain. His opening essay is a sublime testimony to the deep transformative experience of joy as told in poetry. He then unexpectedly presents a way forward with joy as a guide so that readers will not live frivolously, but rather boldly and courageously. These poems range across time and the poets across a wide expanse of experience. Wiman demonstrates in this collection the truth of what the theologian Jürgen Moltmann claimed: Compassion is the other side of joy. Perhaps poetry can return to the center of life as an essential spiritual practice for the living of these days. One can find plenty of food for the soul in this marvelous book.
November 18, 2020
"joy- its not just a gift. in a sense its also a duty, a task to fulfill. courage".
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. just finished reading joy: 100 poems 📝 its such a great poetry compilation focusing on the theme - joy and it is just so unique how each and every poem expresses joy differently. ☺️ there are of course, a lot that i enjoyed reading but just a few that doesnt really speak to me. the thing about joy is that its such a broad topic but i felt that its so necessary to talk about. how do you define joy? i guess everyone have their own definition of joy and this book captures that oh so beautifully. 🌟
i love how this book also introduces me to a lot of new poets that i have not heard! some of the poems are also translated to english so its really cool to see a multicultural approach. such a great exposure & exploration through poetry. if you would like to read this, may you find joy after doing so 🌿☺️
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5. just finished reading joy: 100 poems 📝 its such a great poetry compilation focusing on the theme - joy and it is just so unique how each and every poem expresses joy differently. ☺️ there are of course, a lot that i enjoyed reading but just a few that doesnt really speak to me. the thing about joy is that its such a broad topic but i felt that its so necessary to talk about. how do you define joy? i guess everyone have their own definition of joy and this book captures that oh so beautifully. 🌟
i love how this book also introduces me to a lot of new poets that i have not heard! some of the poems are also translated to english so its really cool to see a multicultural approach. such a great exposure & exploration through poetry. if you would like to read this, may you find joy after doing so 🌿☺️
January 28, 2018
What an inspired idea - joy may be best expressed through poetry, rather than through a rational exposition. I have to admit though that I enjoyed Wiman’s introductory essay more than many of the poems included in this volume. I’m sure the fault is all mine. Proper appreciation of poetry is one of my many deficiencies. I really liked some of these poems, but I admit, it’s true, my favorite poem is still “Thomas Was a Little Glutton.” Yes, that one brings me joy.
Wiman’s essay was so insightful I would like to read his book, “My Bright Abyss.”
Thanks for the gift Tracie & Mark!
Wiman’s essay was so insightful I would like to read his book, “My Bright Abyss.”
Thanks for the gift Tracie & Mark!
June 16, 2020
In early 2020, I observed that I had bought a lot of poetry in 2019, and that was probably because I would need it. That observation aged well, but also this is the book of poetry I think I've needed the most. What a beautiful collection. Every poem made my soul swell up with the goodness of it. And the essay by Christian Wiman at the beginning of this collection is stunning. This book is a friend, one whose cover will become battered and well-loved, I already know.
May 9, 2023
Wasn’t super in a poetry mood for these but I still liked it. Wiman sure knows how to curate a collection. The project was posed by Miroslav Volf which is theologically #dope
June 3, 2020
It’s been discordant reading a collection of poems about joy while weeping for the systemic injustice in our country and worried for our future. But so many of these poems arise from experiences of deep pain, which makes this the perfect time to be reading them. Day by day, let’s find ways to take Wendell Berry’s exhortation to heart: “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”
October 11, 2019
This is a collection to savor and revisit. My husband bought it for me as a birthday gift, and we read one poem together each morning. Here is one of my favorites:
A Brief For The Defense
by Jack Gilbert
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
A Brief For The Defense
by Jack Gilbert
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.
May 29, 2018
This is arguably one of the most important and meaningful poetry anthologies I’ve ever read. The collection that Christian Wiman has put together here is diverse, lovely, sometimes strange, and always affecting. Each poem frames the idea of “joy” in its own distinct way, lending the anthology an exciting degree of discovery that feels deeply personal and yet universally applicable. I can’t recommend this book enough, and will be inevitably forcing it upon anyone and everyone I can.
November 11, 2018
An absolute joy to read. :)
November 30, 2020
I love poetry, and as a middle school teacher, sharing and teaching poetry was one of my favorite experiences. However, I could not connect with this collection that I found in a bookstore. I thought it would be a welcome addition to my poetry shelf, but it was a disappointment.
January 25, 2018
This is a vote for the blessings of serendipity. I scooped this up from the new book section at Carnegie Mellon University, and was rewarded with a wonderful selection of poems and essay excerpts on the subject of joy.
As editor Christian Wiman notes in the introductory essay, joy is not the same as happiness -- it is less frequent, something we have less control over, and often has a strong streak of the spiritual, which is reflected in the fact that the Yale Center for Faith and Culture helped finance the book.
Wiman has done an outstanding job of choosing a wide variety of poems by true powerhouses, from Wendell Barry, Robert Frost and Louise MacNeice to Marianne Moore, Rita Dove and Emily Dickinson. I must have posted at least a dozen of these poems to my Facebook site, and I thought the short essay segments, which ranged from religious to literary writing, were very thoughtfully chosen.
As Wiman noted, few of the poems speak to joy directly, but all approach it, one way or the other.
For just one example, here's a beauty by Muriel Rukeyser
Yes
Muriel Rukeyser
It's like a tap-dance
or a new pink dress,
a shit-naive feeling
Saying Yes.
Some say Good morning
Some say God bless--
Some say Possibly
Some say Yes.
Some say Never
Some say Unless
It's stupid and lovely
To rush into Yes.
What can it mean?
It's just like life,
One thing to you
One to your wife.
Some go local
Some go express
Some can't wait
To answer Yes.
Some complain
Of strain and stress
The answer may be
No for Yes.
Some like failure
Some like Success
Some like Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes.
Open your eyes,
Dream but don't guess.
Your biggest surprise
Comes after Yes.
As editor Christian Wiman notes in the introductory essay, joy is not the same as happiness -- it is less frequent, something we have less control over, and often has a strong streak of the spiritual, which is reflected in the fact that the Yale Center for Faith and Culture helped finance the book.
Wiman has done an outstanding job of choosing a wide variety of poems by true powerhouses, from Wendell Barry, Robert Frost and Louise MacNeice to Marianne Moore, Rita Dove and Emily Dickinson. I must have posted at least a dozen of these poems to my Facebook site, and I thought the short essay segments, which ranged from religious to literary writing, were very thoughtfully chosen.
As Wiman noted, few of the poems speak to joy directly, but all approach it, one way or the other.
For just one example, here's a beauty by Muriel Rukeyser
Yes
Muriel Rukeyser
It's like a tap-dance
or a new pink dress,
a shit-naive feeling
Saying Yes.
Some say Good morning
Some say God bless--
Some say Possibly
Some say Yes.
Some say Never
Some say Unless
It's stupid and lovely
To rush into Yes.
What can it mean?
It's just like life,
One thing to you
One to your wife.
Some go local
Some go express
Some can't wait
To answer Yes.
Some complain
Of strain and stress
The answer may be
No for Yes.
Some like failure
Some like Success
Some like Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes.
Open your eyes,
Dream but don't guess.
Your biggest surprise
Comes after Yes.
November 13, 2017
Kept up my tradition of retreating to a quiet place (Edgar Evins State Park this time) for the first read-through of a new Christian Wiman book, and it was wonderful—and a much-needed respite from recent busyness. The collection starts with an essay thinking about the word “joy,” followed by a hundred poems that were written by poets born during or after modernism, because Wiman “wanted specifically to explore what joy means for poets at this moment in history.” Mixed in with the poems are sentences and paragraphs from writers like Zadie Smith, Rainer Maria Rilke, Martin Buber, Marilynne Robinson, and Wendell Berry.
Wiman: “I took on this project because I realized that I was somewhat confused about the word myself, and I have found that, for me, the best way of thinking through any existential problem is with poetry, which does not “think through” such a problem so much as undergo it. Subjected to poetry’s extremities of form and feeling, what might that one word, in these wild times, mean?”
Wiman: “I took on this project because I realized that I was somewhat confused about the word myself, and I have found that, for me, the best way of thinking through any existential problem is with poetry, which does not “think through” such a problem so much as undergo it. Subjected to poetry’s extremities of form and feeling, what might that one word, in these wild times, mean?”
January 26, 2021
This is a unique, diverse, and wonderful collection of poetry. The introduction, “Still Wilderness,” is possibly my favorite piece of prose (about poetry) by Christian Wiman. The pieces of prose writing that punctuate and steer the collection are expertly chosen and perhaps best summed up by this one by Alexander Schmemann: “The knowledge of the fallen world does not kill joy, which emanates in this world, always, constantly, as a bright sorrow.”
June 27, 2019
Christian Wiman's anthology JOY: 100 POEMS is an antidote for these difficult times. I've found new writers and beautiful poems. It's quiet and wonderful, sincere and heartfelt. I'm so grateful my poet friend Susan Blackwell Ramsey (I love Susan Blackwell Ramsey's poetry collection "A Mind Like This" from University of Nebraska Press) recommended this anthology and the practice of reading a poem from the anthology every morning. Definitely a way to cultivate joy.
September 7, 2019
Wiman’s “ode to joy” anthology of poems covers all sorts of moments in life where the profundity comes not from sadness but from joy. This is no shallow thrill-fest but an exploration of the full range of human emotion. I loved the variety of poems chosen and found Wiman’s introductory essay on joy very helpful for framing my reading of the poems as well as my thinking on joy in general.
February 4, 2020
This is certainly an interesting read, though not always entertaining.
Some of the poems I found in those book I can say have become my favourite. Most of the poems in the this however, I can say bored me immensely- hence why it took so long to finish.
I would recommend to any poetry lover, not to any reader in general.
Some of the poems I found in those book I can say have become my favourite. Most of the poems in the this however, I can say bored me immensely- hence why it took so long to finish.
I would recommend to any poetry lover, not to any reader in general.
April 28, 2021
A wonderful collection that led me to Yehudah Amichai's book "Open Closed Open", with the stunning poem The Precision of Pain and the Blurriness of Joy:The Touch of Longing is Everywhere". Two other faves from this collection are Sterling Brown's "Slim in Atlanta", and Patricia Smith's "Hip-Hop Ghazal"
August 25, 2019
Incredible. Joy is something we talk around a lot, and rarely address head-on. That’s why we need poetry.
December 10, 2021
The title sounds cliche, but if you know Christian Wiman, you know anything cliche is anathema. He opens this book with an essay on joy…a deeper, more mysterious, and much more valuable experience than mere emotions like happiness or contentedness. Following the essay are 100 poems that prove this. I’ve spent the last four months slowly working through this. It’s so good.
November 24, 2025
I could only appreciate about a third of these poems, but I really did love that third.
December 6, 2025
Beautiful collection of poems that genuinely capture the spirituality of joy in the 21st century
April 21, 2023
3/3.5 ⭐️(own physical book/ project 51 )
I’m learning to read poetry and this was a nice compilation that I worked my way through slowly. I’m sure my appreciation of it would be different if I were a more prolific reader of poetry but as a “beginner” I found it accessible and enjoyable overall even if some of the poems just didn’t land for me.
I’m learning to read poetry and this was a nice compilation that I worked my way through slowly. I’m sure my appreciation of it would be different if I were a more prolific reader of poetry but as a “beginner” I found it accessible and enjoyable overall even if some of the poems just didn’t land for me.
December 30, 2024
Really enjoyed several of these entries. Worth a read.
December 10, 2018
All of us, inching toward an understanding of what joy is. That is what this anthology is. I thought, upon starting my read, that it might tend toward the saccharine. But I had faith because of the other work I've seen from Wiman. And the sweetness I found in this book, it was not overwhelming. It was the perfect amount. There was also that deep, black well I sense at the bottom of joy. What a wonderful collection.
December 28, 2021
It was pretty good and exposed me to a few new authors I liked. I can't say I fully grasped each poem and some of them I couldn't care less about due to the subject matter (human urination, dog urination.. Not a big deal just not what I like to read in most of my poems lol) but I did enjoy the laundromat poem. That was actually the short poem I read in the bookstore that convinced me to buy the book.
July 22, 2021
DOES ANYONE OUT there remember Sister Corita Kent (1918-86)? Her posters, brightly-colored with handmade-looking shapes and inspirational quotations, were part of the landscape in the late 60s and early 70s if you were in any of the various milieus where religion cohabited with ideals of social justice. The underlying message was typically thoughtful and serious, but the design was usually bold and cheerful. If you do not remember Corita, you could search for her work right now, and as soon as you saw it you would say, “oh…that sort of thing.”
Yes. Well, the cover of Christian Wiman’s anthology looks like a Corita poster (though actually the work of an artist named Mary Valencia). And it radiates the same vibe, we might say: cheerful and bold, but also serious and thoughtful, suitable for every enlightened home.
The anthology walks a fine line. Its orientation is religious, I would say, and vaguely Christian, but there are no “thank you Jesus” poems here (although gratitude appears frequently) and there is none of the spirit that animates the folks who stand by government buildings with posters of bloodied embryos. As you might expect if you have read Wiman’s My Bright Abyss, the joy in the anthology is religiously grounded but curiously astringent, streaked with pain and loss.
But how many copies can you hope to sell of a poetry anthology titled Curiously Astringent Joy Streaked with Pain and Loss: 100 Poems? Not many, obviously. Better just call it Joy and commission a Corita-esque cover.
The poetry maintains high standards, as you might guess from knowing Wiman helmed Poetry magazine during one of its better periods. Mainly American, mainly from the last 40-50 years, not much that you would call experimental or avant-garde (does have a Gertrude Stein poem, though), mainly well-known poets, but reasonably diverse within those parameters. Highly readable, deftly arranged, salted with well-chosen prose excerpts…an arrow headed for the bull’s-eye in the heart of any progressive, literate person of faith…are there such people still around? If you build it, will they come?
It’s actually a little difficult to imagine that the audience the anthology imagines is still around in the Year or Our Lord 2021. But maybe.
Yes. Well, the cover of Christian Wiman’s anthology looks like a Corita poster (though actually the work of an artist named Mary Valencia). And it radiates the same vibe, we might say: cheerful and bold, but also serious and thoughtful, suitable for every enlightened home.
The anthology walks a fine line. Its orientation is religious, I would say, and vaguely Christian, but there are no “thank you Jesus” poems here (although gratitude appears frequently) and there is none of the spirit that animates the folks who stand by government buildings with posters of bloodied embryos. As you might expect if you have read Wiman’s My Bright Abyss, the joy in the anthology is religiously grounded but curiously astringent, streaked with pain and loss.
But how many copies can you hope to sell of a poetry anthology titled Curiously Astringent Joy Streaked with Pain and Loss: 100 Poems? Not many, obviously. Better just call it Joy and commission a Corita-esque cover.
The poetry maintains high standards, as you might guess from knowing Wiman helmed Poetry magazine during one of its better periods. Mainly American, mainly from the last 40-50 years, not much that you would call experimental or avant-garde (does have a Gertrude Stein poem, though), mainly well-known poets, but reasonably diverse within those parameters. Highly readable, deftly arranged, salted with well-chosen prose excerpts…an arrow headed for the bull’s-eye in the heart of any progressive, literate person of faith…are there such people still around? If you build it, will they come?
It’s actually a little difficult to imagine that the audience the anthology imagines is still around in the Year or Our Lord 2021. But maybe.
January 10, 2018
I enjoyed reading this anthology of poetry which all have the theme of Joy. Although I read a Kindle version, it would make a great coffee table book as it’s one I will undoubtably go back to time and time again.
Christian Wiman has written a wonderful introduction to the 100 poems which includes consideration of what constitutes joy and uses examples of some of the poems from the anthology to demonstrate this. I particularly enjoyed reading the latter since it includes Christian’s interpretations of the poet’s intentions (which was very helpful for someone who does not read poetry very often and has not formerly studied the art form for over 20 years).
I loved so many of the poems Christian selected for his collection, a couple of my particular favourites included Norman Maccaig, ‘One of the Many Days’ and Maria Hummel, ‘Station’ (in a months time I will probably have another couple of favourites - such is my relationship with poetry!).
It would have been perfect for me if it had had the dates the poems were published next to the poems - especially as Christian states in the introduction that he chose the selection, with a couple of exceptions, to explore what Joy meant for the poets at this moment in history. NB I read an advance uncorrected proof of the book so the dates may have been added in the hardback/ or any current Kindle version.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advance proof copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Christian Wiman has written a wonderful introduction to the 100 poems which includes consideration of what constitutes joy and uses examples of some of the poems from the anthology to demonstrate this. I particularly enjoyed reading the latter since it includes Christian’s interpretations of the poet’s intentions (which was very helpful for someone who does not read poetry very often and has not formerly studied the art form for over 20 years).
I loved so many of the poems Christian selected for his collection, a couple of my particular favourites included Norman Maccaig, ‘One of the Many Days’ and Maria Hummel, ‘Station’ (in a months time I will probably have another couple of favourites - such is my relationship with poetry!).
It would have been perfect for me if it had had the dates the poems were published next to the poems - especially as Christian states in the introduction that he chose the selection, with a couple of exceptions, to explore what Joy meant for the poets at this moment in history. NB I read an advance uncorrected proof of the book so the dates may have been added in the hardback/ or any current Kindle version.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advance proof copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 2, 2021
Not usually a huge re-reader bc there’s already so much in the que, but booooy did I need these poems. Little glimmers that describe joy in their own mundane ways. Christian Wiman collects poets who put words to feelings and there are truly pieces in here that I think about daily.
POTB: (poem of the book-originally autocorrected to potbelly):
The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy. I'm thinking
how precise people are when they describe their pain in a doctor's office.
Even those who haven't learned to read and write are precise:
"This one's a throbbing pain, that one's a wrenching pain,
this one gnaws, that one burns, this is a sharp pain
and that––a dull one. Right here. Precisely here,
yes, yes." Joy blurs everything, I've heard people say
after night of love and feasting, "It was great,
I was in seventh heaven." Even the spaceman who floated
in outer space, tethered to a spaceship, could say only, "Great,
wonderful, I have no words."
The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain––
I want to describe, with a sharp pain's precision, happiness
and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains.
POTB: (poem of the book-originally autocorrected to potbelly):
The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy. I'm thinking
how precise people are when they describe their pain in a doctor's office.
Even those who haven't learned to read and write are precise:
"This one's a throbbing pain, that one's a wrenching pain,
this one gnaws, that one burns, this is a sharp pain
and that––a dull one. Right here. Precisely here,
yes, yes." Joy blurs everything, I've heard people say
after night of love and feasting, "It was great,
I was in seventh heaven." Even the spaceman who floated
in outer space, tethered to a spaceship, could say only, "Great,
wonderful, I have no words."
The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain––
I want to describe, with a sharp pain's precision, happiness
and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains.
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