A luminous new collection from widely published essayist, translator, and critically acclaimed poet Mischa Willett, one of the most compelling voices in modern religious poetry.
In his new collection, Mischa Willett negotiates with the vibrant voices of recent contemporaries, from Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, and Denise Levertov to W.M. Ransom, David Lee and Fleda Brown. The poems in This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed navigate faith, prayer, and church, but also disappointment, displacement, and deep reading.
As Willett observes in a poem engaging with Marvin Bell,
“It isn’t doubt when suffering seizes the hilltop of your
heart or when the fireplace of ashes misses the heat that
made it―when in the traffic you simply can’t hear a thing
or the way is unclear―none of that is doubt.
It’s faith, when you come to it, that asks of us everything,
that empties and empties until we are full, that fills the
gnaw in the gut, dispels the cloud of mind, that runs out
the money-changers in the forecourt, that names.”
Both referential and reverent, this striking and deeply moving collection balances humor with the profound seriousness and abiding joy available at the heart of human life.
Praise for Mischa Willett from Scott Cairns, author of Slow Pilgrim: The Collected Poems― “Mischa Willett has a music all his own, albeit a music informed by years of his attending to the inexhaustible songs that comprise both world poetry and sacred text. He employs surprising linguistic brilliance to compose oratoria that brighten the heart of his reader, even as they transpose the familiar, offering echoes of a prior song lovingly adapted to a new, an exhilarating voice.”
