A passionate meditation on the consolations and disappointments of religion and poetry

Christian Wiman, an award-winning poet and the editor of Poetry magazine, has had two constants in his life, two things that have defined him and given him solace in his times of need: faith and verse. But when he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, he began to question what his Christian beliefs and his love of poetry could really do—not only to save him from death but also to give him comfort in his pain.
     Written in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, during a time when Wiman was convinced he was going to die, My Bright Abyss radiates with the intensity of a man attempting to confront his feelings and doubts while he still has time. It is a powerful meditation on what it means—for an artist and a person—to have faith not just in God but in anything in the face of death.

Praise for Every Riven Thing

“A stark and moving meditation on the nature of grief, mortality and living a life of the spirit.” —Dana Jennings, The New York Times