The Long Home (Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize)

Rating:
Summary: Subtle and Strong
Review: I learned of Christian Wiman from a marvelous essay he published in The Threepenny Review, in which he talks about reading Milton's "Paradise Lost" in Guatemala. Intrigued, I purchased "The Long Home," and I can say that I was not disappointed. While all the poems are not of equal strength, I've always felt that poets should be judged by their best work, and at least one poem, the sonnet "Revenant," is a masterpiece. In that work, more than in the longer title poem, Wiman shows his gifts as a rigorous thinker: "her white face under the unburdening skies / upturned to feel the burn that never came: / that furious insight and the end of pain." The shape of this poem, on every level, engages the tightly-coiled subject of a woman's singular obsession. I've read this poem many times and as with all great poems each time I discover something new. But the long poem of the book's title, while often moving and evocative of a particular time and place, seems to me to be too loose, occasionally approaching an arbitrarily clipped prose piece. (Wiman has, to my ear, a disagreeable habit of beginning lines with "Of," as in "without a speck / Of paving," "a level cloud / Of cotton," "a single lock / Of cotton..." and so forth. There are several similar examples on nearly every page of the poem.) Despite these reservations, overall this is an excellent volume and I will be eager to read Wiman's next book, and curious to see in what direction his work evolves.

Rating:
Summary: a spare epic
Review: The Long Home, the central work in the collection, is a gorgeously written epic story of Texan history. Christian Wiman writes with a spare and incisive intelligence and compassion, a wonderful stillness and attention to language and lilt.

I heartily recommend this book!

Rating:
Summary: World view of a private history
Review: Wiman's work is largely humble -- even the grandest of moments are rather subdued (in a grand way, of course). The language is asthetically lovely and he skillfully avoids the over-sentementality that one would expect from a family memoir. Another reviewer accused Wiman of being a slave to the MFA grind, but I couldn't disagree more. Wiman may be young, but his work is wise and freshly rooted in an understanding of poetic and human history.